Univ., Diss.--Hamburg, 2001. / Bibliographie S. [277] - 301.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2001

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Hamburg. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-301).

By investigating the metaphorical connection between bloodletting and the act of writing and drawing, this thesis examines the effects and potential dangers of bearing witness and recording witness testimonials as it is experienced by first-generation and second-generation Holocaust witnesses/authors respectively. Primo Levi’s works as well as biographical records documenting his life and death are examined as the primary sources for the analysis of the survivor or first-generation witness/author. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novels Maus and Maus II provide the source materials for the exploration of the second or ‘postmemory’ generation’s experience with recording their own inherited transgenerational trauma. To support this metaphorical and theoretical framework, I will engage the theories of Janet McCord and her study on suicide and Holocaust survivors as well as employ the works of Sigmund Freud, Dominick LaCapra, Cathy Caruth and Marianne Hirsch in relation to their work on cultural trauma and memory. / Graduate

The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. The analysis is focused on the form of the graphical novel, the history that is conveyed and how that history is conveyed. I will present a series of previous studies made around comics, their form, and use in school. The questions in my analysis are based on these earlier studies. The history that is communicated in Maus is then compared with a developed textbook for high school students. This is to investigate what potential didactic function a graphic novel can have in teaching history for high school students. My three main questions in this study examines what history of the Holocaust is conveyed in the graphical novel Maus and how is that history conveyed? What history of the holocaust is conveyed in Perspektiv på historien, a traditional textbook for high school, students, and how is that history conveyed? Finally, I will use the results of these two questions to answer the final question. What potential didactic function Maus can have in teaching history for high school students? My results are then discussed with regard to previous studies that I’ve previously presented. My results show that the story that is presented in Maus is largely the same as the one that is conveyed in Perspektiv på historien. The essential difference between these two materials for teaching lies in the form, but primarily the perspective. By allowing students to share the individual story, the microperspective of Maus, they can get a complementary individual perspective to the otherwise wide-ranging story presented in Perspektiv på historien. The form also allows a class to discuss questions about the holocaust, such as morality, ethics etc., The individual perspective and the form of the graphic novel opens up a classroom climate, where all students can feel that they are included.

Submitted by Fernanda Rodrigues de Lima (fernanda.rlima@ufpe.br) on 2018-07-13T21:33:38Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO Victor Vitório de Barros Correia.pdf: 6196262 bytes, checksum: 62a2df5e9b4c86c67d557282b4cd57d5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alice Araujo (alice.caraujo@ufpe.br) on 2018-07-18T22:14:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO Victor Vitório de Barros Correia.pdf: 6196262 bytes, checksum: 62a2df5e9b4c86c67d557282b4cd57d5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-18T22:14:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO Victor Vitório de Barros Correia.pdf: 6196262 bytes, checksum: 62a2df5e9b4c86c67d557282b4cd57d5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-22 / Esta é uma abordagem da representação da memória centrada no estudo de caso de Maus: a história de um sobrevivente, de Art Spiegelman, história em quadrinhos que constrói uma biografia do pai do autor, um judeu sobrevivente do Holocausto. A obra é um objeto exemplar para refletir a relação dos afetos entre história e memória, especialmente na memória traumática coletiva e individual. Há uma complexa moralidade entre o lembrar e o esquecer, que dialeticamente desempenham distintas funções vitais ao ser humano. O trauma instaura a necessidade do testemunho, que paradoxalmente é acompanhada de sua impossibilidade – a linguagem é insuficiente para representar e comunicar a ruptura infligida pelo trauma, o que demanda uma árdua consciência da própria limitação a fim de seguir na tarefa de reconstrução simbólica, um esforço de tradução sincera na tentativa de alcançar quem lhe dê ouvidos. Esse esforço levou Spiegelman a uma tentativa de distanciar-se de sua própria história para melhor acessá-la, empregando uma peculiar metáfora visual: em seu livro todos os judeus são desenhados como ratos, alemães como gatos e poloneses como porcos. A autoconsciência e a sinceridade são expressas no caráter metalinguístico de Maus, que trata de sua própria produção, narrando os obstáculos emocionais e os labirintos da memória que Spiegelman encontrou enquanto tentava compreender o passado dos pais e sua relação com eles, uma tentativa de também lançar alguma luz sobre seus próprios traumas. O uso de desenhos e de hibridismo de linguagens nas histórias em quadrinhos enriquece essa capacidade autorreferencial e aprofunda as possibilidades de expressão do autor. Isto faz de Maus também uma obra autobiográfica e uma reflexão sobre a relação recíproca entre o passado e o presente. Tal relação deve fluir no sentido da vitalidade da condição humana, sempre ameaçada pela perene desumanização que tem na violência sua raiz e fruto. Dito isto, após apresentar Maus teremos um capítulo sobre história amparado por textos de Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman, Saul Friedländer e Raul Hilberg; o seguinte, sobre memória e testemunho, toma apoio em Aleida Assmann, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Tzvetan Todorov, Primo Levi, Walter Benjamin, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Marianne Hirsch e Friedrich Nietzsche; por fim, o capítulo sobre a representação em história em quadrinhos tem o suporte teórico de Scott McCloud, Rocco Versaci e Nick Sousanis. O próprio Art Spiegelman é certamente a mais importante fonte neste estudo. / This approach to memory representation centers on a case study of Maus: a survivor's tale, by Art Spiegelman, a comic book in which he builds a biography of his father, a Jew who survived the Holocaust. The book is an exemplary subject to ponder on the affective relation between history and memory, especially traumatic memory, both individual and collective. There is a complex morality between remembering and forgetting, which dialectically perform distinct vital functions to the human being. Trauma establishes the need for testimony, paradoxically followed by its very impossibility – language does not suffice to represent and communicate the rupture inflicted by trauma, demanding an arduous self-consciousness of one’s own limitation in order to proceed with the chore of symbolic reconstruction, an effort for sincere translation trying to reach those who would listen to it. Such an effort led the author to distance himself from his own history so he could better access it, using a peculiar visual metaphor: in his book, all Jews are drawn as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs. Self-consciousness and sincerity are expressed through Maus’s metaliguistic quality of dealing with its own production, telling about the emotional obstacles and the labyrinths of memory Spiegelman came across while he was trying to understand his parents’ past and his relationship with them, and also to shed some light on his own traumas. The use of drawings and of language hybridism in comic books enriches the self-awareness and deepens the author’s possibilities of expression. All this makes Maus an autobiographical work and a reflection on the reciprocal relationship between past and present. Such relationship should flow towards zeal for the human condition, despite being threatened by the everlasting dehumanization, which is both root to and fruit of violence. That being said, after presenting Maus we’ll have a chapter on history with the support of texts by Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman, Saul Friedländer and Raul Hilberg; the next chapter, on memory and testimony, leans on Aleida Assmann, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Tzvetan Todorov, Walter Benjamin, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Marianne Hirsch and Friedrich Nietzsche. Finally, the chapter on comics representation holds theoretical support from Scott McCloud, Rocco Versaci and Nick Sousanis. Art Spiegelman is certainly the main source throughout this study.

Cette étude propose d’explorer les œuvres de Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, et Art Spiegelman, à travers la notion de trace, principe fondateur de l’esthétique et de l’éthique des écritures de l’après-Shoah. L’expérience lacunaire de ces « générations d’après » implique la présence d’une « postmémoire », dont le caractère « différé » sollicite le travail de l’imagination et informe la démarche créatrice de ces artistes et écrivains de l’après, qui reconstruisent le passé de leurs familles. Ces récits de la hantise sont marqués par une « mémoire trouée », et découlent souvent d’une rupture de la filiation, donc d’une défaillance de la transmission. Engagés dans une quête de savoir, narrateurs et protagonistes interrogent l’événement à partir de traces matérielles, ainsi qu’au travers de retours, réels et imaginaires, sur les lieux de l’origine. Ces récits sont composés de matériaux hétérogènes qui créent des ruptures visuelles, et sont informés par divers dérèglements temporels : désordres, disruptions chronologiques, latence et répétition – tous symptomatiques de l’après-coup du trauma. Ces textes postmémoriels posent enfin la question de l’éthique de la représentation. Performativité de la langue, fictionnalisation de l’Histoire, et enjeux de la transmission sont au cœur de ces œuvres en devenir, et interrogent l’éthique de la responsabilité de leurs auteurs, entre passation et travail de deuil. / This study explores the works of Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Art Spiegelman through the notion of trace, the founding principle of the aesthetics and ethics of post-Holocaust writing. The incomplete knowledge of these “post-Holocaust generations” implies the presence of a “postmemory”, the “deferred” nature of which requires the imagination to be put to work and informs the creative approach of these post-Holocaust artists and writers, reconstructing their family’s past. These haunting narratives are marked by a “memory shot through with holes” and are often the result of a break in the bond of filiation, and therefore a hiatus of transmission. Having embarked on a quest for knowledge, narrators and protagonists examine the event through material traces, as well as real or imaginary returns to their places of origin. These narratives are made up of heterogeneous elements which create visual ruptures and are informed by various temporal disruptions: disorders, chronological breaks, latency and repetition – all symptomatic of the deferred action of trauma. Finally, these postmemorial texts raise the issue of the ethics of representation. The performativity of language, the fictionalization of History, and the issue of transmission are at the heart of these works in the making, and ethically question their authors’ responsibility, between transfer and the work of mourning.

Art Spiegelman is one of the most important figures in the history of American comics. His work Maus (1980 and 1991) is arguably the landmark text in the field of comic book studies. Given the relatively recent reissue of his first collection Breakdowns (2008) and the publication of his interview/essay collection/scrapbook Metamaus (2011), it is likely that his work will continue to be the subject of critical interest. This thesis concerns the collections Breakdowns (1977 and 2008), Maus (1980 and 1991) and In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). It represents the first book-length extended study of Spiegelman s three major works. The central argument put forth in this thesis is that the Spiegelman oeuvre articulates and manifests a madness which its author perceives to underlie supposedly rational society. In support of this thesis I will employ critical models from the following fields: Holocaust studies, trauma theory, the anti-psychiatry movement, theories concerning the representation of madness, formalist analyses of comics, and Genette s narratological taxonomy.

Art Spiegelman realitzà a Maus una biografia sobre les experiències del seu pare com a víctima de l’Holocaust. El que normalment hagués estat una altra narració de supervivència va constituir un abans i un després per tractar-se d’una novel·la gràfica, un suport molt poc habitual per temes de tanta gravetat. Spiegelman dibuixa a jueus i nazis mitjançant ratolins i gats, respectivament. Aquest plantejament representatiu és assumit de forma natural pel lector, però en realitat es tracta d’una inversió de caràcters entre els dos animals, que només es pot entendre si s’analitzen els precedents gràfics de l’autor. L’animalització dels jueus per part dels nazis, la propaganda bèl·lica feta des del món de l’animació de la mà de Disney i la càrrega visual dels dibuixos animats des del anys trenta convergeixen en l’imaginari de Spiegelman i en la correcta comprensió del seu text. / Art Spiegelman made in Maus a biography about his father's experiences as a victim of the Holocaust. What normally would have been another story of survival made a difference for its genre: the graphic novel, which is an unusual support for topics with such burden. Spiegelman draws the Jews and Nazis as mice and cats, respectively. This representational approach is naturally assumed by the reader, but actually it is a reversal of characters between the two animals, which can only be understood if we analyze the author's graphic background. The animalisation of Jews by Nazis, the war propaganda from Disney’s animation, and the visual influence of cartoons from the thirties, converge in Spiegelman’s imaginary and in the correct understanding of his text.