Empathetic Memorials
The Other Designs for the Berlin Holocaust Memorial
Authors: Callaghan, Mark
Free Preview- Analyses contributions to the Berlin Holocaust Memorial Competitions of the 1990s
- Explores the relationship between cultural memory, empathy and the representation of difficult histories
- Discusses the controversy surrounding dedicating the memorial exclusively to murdered Jews
Buy this book
- About this book
-
This book is a study of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial Competitions of the 1990s, with a focus on designs that kindle empathetic responses. Through analysis of provocative designs, the book engages with issues of empathy, secondary witnessing, and depictions of concentration camp iconography. It explores the relationship between empathy and cultural memory when representations of suffering are notably absent. The book submits that one design represents the idea of an uncanny memorial, and also pays attention to viewer co-authorship in counter-monuments. Analysis of counter-monuments also include their creative engagement with German history and their determination to defy fascist aesthetics. As the winning design for The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is abstract with an information centre, there is an exploration of the memorial museum. Callaghan asks whether this configuration is intended to compensate for the abstract memorial’s ambiguity or to complement the design’s visceral potential. Other debates explored concern political memory, national memory, and the controversy of dedicating the memorial exclusively to murdered Jews.
- About the authors
-
Mark Callaghan is an art historian who has taught at several leading institutions, including Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. He specializes in contemporary memory culture and twentieth century art history.
- Table of contents (6 chapters)
-
-
Introduction
Pages 1-10
-
Who Is the Memorial For?
Pages 11-81
-
Issues of Representation
Pages 83-151
-
Different Ways of Understanding Individual Victims: Names, Photographs, and the Void
Pages 153-194
-
Designs That Attempt to Resist the Completion of Memory
Pages 195-246
-
Table of contents (6 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
-
- Book Title
- Empathetic Memorials
- Book Subtitle
- The Other Designs for the Berlin Holocaust Memorial
- Authors
-
- Mark Callaghan
- Series Title
- Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies
- Copyright
- 2020
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-50932-3
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-50932-3
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-50931-6
- Series ISSN
- 2634-6257
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XIV, 259
- Number of Illustrations
- 19 b/w illustrations
- Topics
