_Imagining the Unimaginable_ examines popular fiction's treatment of
the Holocaust in the dystopian and alternate history genres of
speculative fiction, analyzing the effectiveness of the genre's major
works as a lens through which to view the most prominent historical
trauma of the 20th century. It surveys a range of British and American
authors, from science fiction pulp to Pulitzer Prize winners, building
on scholarship across disciplines, including Holocaust studies, trauma
studies, and science fiction studies.
The conventional discourse around the Holocaust is one of the
unapproachable, unknowable, and the unimaginable. The Holocaust has
been compared to an earthquake, another planet, another universe, a
void. It has been said to be beyond language, or else have its own
incomprehensible language, beyond art, and beyond thought.
The 'othering' of the event has spurred the phenomenon of non-realist
Holocaust literature, engaging with speculative fiction and its
history of the uncanny, the grotesque, and the inhuman. This book
examines the most common forms of nonmimetic Holocaust fiction, the
dystopia and the alternate history, while firmly positioning these
forms within a broader pattern of non-realist engagements with the
Holocaust.
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Speculative Fiction and the Holocaust
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781501350566
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Bloomsbury USA
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter