Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the Dept. of Educational and Counselling Psychology. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/08/04). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-201). Available also on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed February 23, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Charles B. Harris, Alvin Goldfarb (co-chairs), Rebecca Saunders, Roberta Seelinger Trites. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 294-304) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Western Sydney. / "May 2002." Title taken from title screen (viewed October 8, 2007). Includes bibliographical references and appendix.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Jared Poley, committee chair; Alexandra Garbarini , Hugh Hudson, committee members. Electronic text (169 p.). Description based on contents viewed Apr. 30, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-169).

This dissertation situates itself within the problematic (mis)representation of women’s traumatic Holocaust experiences that are subjected to and underplayed by the patriarchal paradigm of Holocaust literature, in which male survivor-narratives constitute the norm. In using Holocaust texts from three different genres and periods, namely Anne Frank’s Diary of 1947, Ruth Klüger’s 2001 autobiography Still Alive: a Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, and Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel The Reader, this project approaches the role of genres in the re-articulation of traumatic experiences. It is the aim of this dissertation to explore the epistolary, autobiographic and fictional forms and their inherent conventions and to examine how they facilitate the articulation of women’s experiences that have long been underplayed and sanitized by rigid, patriarchal historical and literary discourses. In doing so, the project follows the structurally fragmenting impact of trauma on the mind and thus moves from short, fragmented forms, such as The Diary, to the more coherent autobiography, Still Alive, and eventually to the novel The Reader. In this analysis of the potential, conventions and complexities that each genre poses to the articulation of trauma, this project outlines and crosses boundaries of genre, gender, language and memory. In aiming at a comparative analysis of how different genres may facilitate the articulation of traumatic experiences differently, this project is based on the argument that the verbalization of trauma is essential for a person to regain control over their memories. This project is based on the different issues regarding the treatment of women, which arise in the selected texts. In selecting epistolary, autobiographic and fictional primary Holocaust texts, all of which address women’s trauma in various forms, I investigate the problematic and distorted representations of women’s experiences. These distortions of women’s traumatic experiences of the Holocaust undermine the validity of such experiences themselves. In order to show the extent of this misrepresentation across genres, I choose three very different primary texts. Firstly, a strong educational component has been ascribed to the diary of Anne Frank, which will be read as a subversive tool. Secondly, the autobiographic text chosen deals extensively with the issue of German/English translation and the representation of trauma that is affected by a bilingual condition. Thirdly, I select a postmodern novel that challenges conventional readings of Holocaust experiences through the use of very complex female characters. In approaching these issues, I will first identify such problematic distortions in the representations of women’s experiences in all three selected texts. I will then use the framework of literary theory as well as trauma and gender theorists to substantiate and evaluate my findings. In doing so, I seek to establish a comparative analysis of how the different forms allow women to re-articulate their traumatic experiences.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the stories of Jewish women and men living in Europe during the Holocaust who made decisions related to pregnancy, abortion, birth, and ‘parenting’ in ghettos, concentration camps, and in hiding. By reviewing existing, publicly accessible survivor testimonies, and by interviewing still-living survivors, I analyze the various ways Jewish women and men used available but limited forms of reproductive assistance to preserve their own lives and to secure the safety of their unborn or born children. Jewish women and their doctors or other ad-hoc medical providers weighed the risks of possible illness or diseases resulting from clandestine care against the seemingly greater or graver risk of Nazi exposure. By highlighting stories from Holocaust survivors who speak about experiences receiving or providing reproductive “health care” during the Holocaust, this study emphasizes what survivors say about seeking or providing abortions under conditions they might not have otherwise accepted, pursued, or suggested. Women who became pregnant during the Holocaust embody the unspeakable dilemma of “birthing into death,” as reproduction often meant murder for Jewish mothers. Pregnant Jewish women and their partners, the medical providers who attended to them, and their witnesses during the Holocaust all have unique perspectives on their own in-the-moment responses to pregnancy under extreme conditions. Their testimonies speak to how the decisions they made involved Jewish cultural notions of childrearing in Europe during the time of the Holocaust, and to the complex shaping of traumatic memory.

No description available.