Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film (Teaching the New English)

Gathering together work by leading teachers and researchers in the field, this book explores a rapidly growing area of the curriculum: Holocaust literature and film. It addresses demanding seminar-room and institutional practicalities, as well as exploring a range of conceptual and theoretical issues and problems. The representation of the Holocaust in literature and film has confronted lecturers and students with some challenging questions. Does this unique and disturbing subject demand alternative pedagogic strategies? What is the role of ethics in the classroom encounter with the Holocaust? Scholars address these and other questions in this collection. In recent years, the proliferation of courses on the representation of the Holocaust in literature and film has confronted lecturers and students alike with some challenging and troubling questions. Is there a 'canon' of Holocaust representations? Are the conventional resources of literary and cinematic study adequate to dealing with the Holocaust, or does this unique and disturbing subject demand alternative pedagogic strategies? What is the role of ethics in the classroom encounter with the Holocaust? How is the diversity of relevant disciplinary perspectives bearing on Holocaust representations - from history and sociology to media studies and philosophical aesthetics - to be managed within the confines of a conventional degree programme? In this innovative and authoritative book, Holocaust scholars and teachers from the UK and US address these and other questions in a wide-ranging collection of specially commissioned essays, drawing on a wealth of practical experience in teaching Holocaust literature and film Introduction / Robert Eaglestone and Barry Langford Issues arising from teaching Holocaust film and literature / Sue Vice and Gwyneth Bodger Holocaust theory? / Robert Eaglestone The role of theories of memory in teaching representations of the Holocaust / Anne Whitehead Teaching Holocaust literature: issues of representation / Nicola King Mass culture/mass media/mass death: teaching film, television, and the Holocaust / Barry Langford "Representing the Holocaust": an interdisciplinary module / Antony Rowland Teaching the Holocaust in French studies: questions of mediation and experience / Ursula Tidd History, memory, fiction in French cinema / Libby Saxton Teaching Primo Levi / Rachel Falconer Teaching Holocaust literature and film to history students: teaching The pawnbroker (1961/1965) / Tim Cole Sophie's choice: on the pedagogical value of the "problem text" / R. Clifton Spargo.