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University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

Inspired by 2009 pastiche Inglourious Basterds (US/DE), my research presents counterfactual historical film, firstly, as a marginalised type of film: the 2000s and 2010s have seen an abundance of overtly fictional films which do not intend to represent the past but nonetheless playfully refer to imageries of National Socialist and Holocaust history. These films have so far been neglected by historical film studies which, despite a consensus not to judge films according to their factual accuracy, tend to focus on genres close to historiography. My research considers as historical films the counterfactual parodies Churchill: The Hollywood Years (GB 2004) and Mein Führer: Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (DE 2007), as well as Inglourious Basterds and, in a brief conclusion, Nazi zombie films. In this sense, counterfactual historical film is, secondly, a research approach which suggests reconfiguring academic definitions of the field of history and film and historical film. Assuming that historical film never visualises past reality but engages with a history that is always already medialised, I propose that the above films despite their counterfactual plots embark on a visual historical discourse, and what is more reflect upon cinema and history in their own enlightening ways. My analyses show how twenty-first century counterfactual historical films revise Nazi and Holocaust visual history, and how they describe National Socialist history as visually constructed and historical Nazism as an eclectic amalgamation drawing on fictional as well as factual media sources. In regard to the present, they explore tensions between popular and academic culture through the dissolving binaries of fiction film and historiographical fact, and propose to recognise the reciprocity of media representation and actual past as an object of research in its own right. My research demonstrates the value of cinema's playful engagement with history as a potential contribution to the theory and practise of historical film studies.

v. 1 [Novel]: End of the night girl [Embargoed] -- v. 2 [Exegesis]: Navigating the kingdom of night: writing the holocaust / 'End of the Night Girl': Nothing seems to go right for Molly – she’s stuck in a dead-end waitressing job, she’s sleeping with a man she doesn’t even like, and she’s just been saddled with a swarm of goldfish and a pregnant stepsister. The chance discovery of an old photograph leads her into an act of creation, and brings her into contact with the ghost of a woman who has been dead for more than sixty years. Sixty years earlier, in Poland, Gienia’s family arranges her marriage to a distant cousin. Not long after her marriage to this stranger, the Nazis invade and she has to face life in the ghetto and the horrors of Auschwitz. End of the Night Girl is a complex fictional narrative in which the lives of these two women, ‘real’ and imagined, imagined and re-imagined, are inextricably combined. ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’: Critics, historians and Holocaust survivors have argued for decades over whether the Holocaust should be accessible to fiction and, if so, who has the right to write those fictions. ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’ addresses such concerns and analyses various literary strategies adopted by authors of Holocaust fiction, including the non-realist narrative techniques used by authors such as Yaffa Eliach, Jonathan Safran Foer and John Boyne and the self-reflexivity of Art Spiegelman. Through the course of the essay I contextualise End of the Night Girl by turning my attention to works that raise critical issues of authorial intent and the reader/writer contract; for example Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird and Helen Darville’s The Hand That Signed the Paper. How did I resolve my own concerns? Which texts helped me and why? Together End of the Night Girl and ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’, one creatively and one critically, explore these complex and controversial questions in a contemporary Australian context. / Thesis(PhD)-- School of Humanities, 2007

In Search of the Deep Politic: Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project, an Arts, Education and Civic Partnership, explores the enactment of public scholarship through embedded case study methodology. Charting the author's experience of seeking deep political action, this case demonstrates the ways in which transdisciplinary partnerships create liminal spaces that open possibilities for pedagogic and social change. The study outlines the enactment of an arts, education and civic partnership occurring inAustin, Texas in 2005 centered in a community-based study of the Holocaust. The study seeks answers to the following questions: (a) How did community leaders envision and enact the community-based partnership Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project?; (b) In what ways, if any, were the artistic, education and civic events amplified through the collaborative partnership Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project?; and (c) What pedagogical possibilities occur for audiences experiencing the dance work Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project? The case demonstrates the possibilities for expanding educational impact through a community integration process, characterized by the alignment of school-based and community-based learning activities located outside traditional educational spaces using a transdisciplinary approach that combines multiple forms of representation. The embedded case of the dance reveals pedagogical possibilities for Holocaust education made possible through the dance, Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project. While limitations of the form inhibit the conveyance of dense historical content, it opens possibility for exploration of dense emotional content. A close examination of the construction of the dance provides an entry point for students into important conversations about the history and representation of the Holocaust. The case study demonstrates the ways in which the Light Project engaged civic capacities through expanded participation, enhanced public awareness, and enhanced capacity for convening civic dialogue and contributions to public discourse. This study describes the ways in which resonance, assurances and the catalyzing forces of leaders support the effective implementation of partnerships.

v. 1 [Novel]: End of the night girl [Embargoed] -- v. 2 [Exegesis]: Navigating the kingdom of night: writing the holocaust / 'End of the Night Girl': Nothing seems to go right for Molly – she’s stuck in a dead-end waitressing job, she’s sleeping with a man she doesn’t even like, and she’s just been saddled with a swarm of goldfish and a pregnant stepsister. The chance discovery of an old photograph leads her into an act of creation, and brings her into contact with the ghost of a woman who has been dead for more than sixty years. Sixty years earlier, in Poland, Gienia’s family arranges her marriage to a distant cousin. Not long after her marriage to this stranger, the Nazis invade and she has to face life in the ghetto and the horrors of Auschwitz. End of the Night Girl is a complex fictional narrative in which the lives of these two women, ‘real’ and imagined, imagined and re-imagined, are inextricably combined. ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’: Critics, historians and Holocaust survivors have argued for decades over whether the Holocaust should be accessible to fiction and, if so, who has the right to write those fictions. ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’ addresses such concerns and analyses various literary strategies adopted by authors of Holocaust fiction, including the non-realist narrative techniques used by authors such as Yaffa Eliach, Jonathan Safran Foer and John Boyne and the self-reflexivity of Art Spiegelman. Through the course of the essay I contextualise End of the Night Girl by turning my attention to works that raise critical issues of authorial intent and the reader/writer contract; for example Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird and Helen Darville’s The Hand That Signed the Paper. How did I resolve my own concerns? Which texts helped me and why? Together End of the Night Girl and ‘Navigating the Kingdom of Night’, one creatively and one critically, explore these complex and controversial questions in a contemporary Australian context. / Thesis(PhD)-- School of Humanities, 2007

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis takes Zygmunt Bauman’s book Modernity and the Holocaust as a point of departure in an attempt to show that genocides of the twentieth century are by-products of modernity, and not aberrations, as previously thought. Bauman’s work focuses on the distinctly modern nature of the Holocaust. Using the theory he develops in Modernity and the Holocaust, this thesis attempts to show, first and foremost, that the Holocaust is not the only example of modern genocide. By comparing and contrasting the Holocaust to another, more recent, genocide, namely the Rwandan genocide of 1994, it becomes clear that despite superficial differences between the two genocides, the Rwandan genocide is also a by-product of modernity. This conclusion has important implications, not only for the way in which we remember the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, but also for our understanding of evil and perpetrators of evil. Drawing on the work of Bauman and Hannah Arendt, especially with regard to the Eichmann case, chapter three investigates our traditional assumptions and expectations with regard to evil and perpetrators of evil and notes the unsettling differences between our assumptions and the modern reality. In order to truly understand the nature of perpetrators of modern genocide, it is important to look at the influence of morality on such perpetrators and the reasons why morality seems incompatible with modernity. In this regard, Haas’ book Morality after Auschwitz is of critical importance. Given the various failures and unexpected by-products of modernity, one has to wonder whether postmodernity would offer a better moral alternative to modernity. Chapter five investigates this supposition, and finds it wanting. Drawing yet again on Bauman, the notion of an ethics of responsibility is put forth as the only safeguard against modern evil. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis neem Zygmunt Bauman se boek Modernity and the Holocaust as ‘n beginpunt en probeer om te wys dat die volksmoorde van die twintigste eeu byprodukte, en nie afwykings, van moderniteit is nie. Bauman se werk fokus op die moderne eienskappe van die Holocaust. Deur gebruik te maak van die teorie wat hy in Modernity and the Holocaust ontwikkel, probeer hierdie tesis om, eerstens, te wys dat die Holocaust nie die enigste voorbeeld van ‘n moderne volksmoord is nie. Deur die Holocaust met ‘n ander, meer onlangse volksmoord, die Rwandese volksmoord van 1994, te vergelyk en te kontrasteer word dit duidelik dat ten spyte van die oppervlakkige verskille tussen die twee volksmoorde, die Rwandese volksmoord ook ‘n byproduk van moderniteit is. Hierdie gevolgtrekking het belangrike implikasies nie net vir die manier waarop ons die Holocaust en die Rwandese volksmoord onthou nie, maar ook vir die wyse waarop ons die kwaad (evil) en perpetrators of evil1 verstaan. Deur verder gebruik te maak van Bauman se werk sowel as die werk van Hannah Arendt, veral met betrekking tot die Eichmann saak, ondersoek hoofstuk drie ons tradisionele aannames en verwagtinge met betrekking tot die kwaad (evil) en perpetrators of evil en wys die onaangename verskille tussen ons aannames en die moderne realiteit uit. Ten einde werklik die aard van perpetrators van moderne volksmoord te verstaan, is dit belangirk om na die invloed van moraliteit op hierdie perpetrators of evil te kyk, asook die redes waarom moraliteit blykbaar teenstrydig is met moderniteit. Haas se belangrike boek, Morality after Auschwitz, word hier geraadpleeg. Gegewe die verskeie tekortkominge van moderniteit, moet ons wonder of postmoderniteit nie dalk ‘n beter morele alternatief bied nie. Hoofstuk vyf ondersoek hierdie stelling en vind dat postmoderniteit ook nie voldoende is nie. Laastens word Bauman weereens geraadpleeg en sy seining van ‘n etiek van verantwoordelikheid word voorgestel as die enigste beskerming teen moderne kwaad. / Harry Crossley Foundation

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Europe in the twentieth century witnessed the large-scale displacement and mass murder of civilian populations because of their ethnic or national identity. Genocide is the ultimate expression of this form of integral nationalism. As a result of the Second World War, the term "genocide" was introduced to describe the victimization of nations, and became codified in international law and agreements. The end of the century saw the introduction of a new term: "ethnic cleansing". This term was used to signify something less than the total physical annihilation of a people in the Balkans wars, in contrast to the extermination campaign of the Nazis in World War Two, or the Turks following World War One. This work looks at both campaigns, the Nazis against the Jews and the Serbs against the Bosnians, to argue, however, that ethnic cleansing is genocide. While much of the debate of the 1990s focuses on body counts to justify the distinction between the two, a careful analysis of the original work on genocide and the UN Agreement which outlaws such phenomenon reveal that this "body count" notion is neither correct nor justifiable. Similarly, a look at these two cases reveals act of genocide developed gradually, rather than as part of pre-existing master plans. / Major, United States Army

Thèse de doctorat, Technische Universität, Berlin, 2007. / Bibliogr. p. 648-670. Index.

It has been nearly sixty years since the October 1943 Danish rescue of Danish Jewry. Since this time, no historian has examined the role that the timing of the planned Jewish round-up played in the degree of success of the rescue. Would a National Socialist round-up of the Danish Jews have been successful if it occurred in 1941 for example? As long as the Danish government was in power, no anti-Jewish measures were implemented in Denmark. Within a month of the Danish government's resignation, National Socialist plans to eliminate Danish Jewry were being drafted. This thesis examines the major events in Denmark that led to the resignation of the Danish government in August 1943, and the failed plan to round-up and deport the Danish Jews. The most important conclusion of this thesis is that to a significant degree, the Danish people were successful in their rescue of Danish Jews because of the timing of the anti-Jewish measures.