Our Nazis
Representations of Fascism in Contemporary Literature and Film
Published on 20. May 2013
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-7486-6864-9 (ISBN)
Description
An analysis of the resurgent cultural fascination with Nazism since 1989
Why has a fascination with fascism re-emerged after the Cold War? What is its cultural function now, in an era of commemoration? Focusing particularly on the British context, this study offers the first analysis of contemporary popular and literary fiction, film, TV and art exhibitions about Nazis and Nazism. Petra Rau brings this material into dialogue with earlier responses to fascism and demonstrates how, paradoxically, Nazism has been both mediated and mythologised to the extent that it now often replaces a critical engagement with actual, violent history.
In 5 thematic chapters on Nazi Noir, Men in Uniform, Vile Bodies, The Good German and Meta-Cinematic Farce, Rau provides close analysis of contemporary novels such as Jason Lutes' graphic novel series Berlin, historical crime fiction by Philip Kerr and others, Robert Harris' Fatherland, Ian McEwan's Black Dogs and Justin Cartwright's The Song Before It Is Sung; films such as Bryan Singer's Valkyrie and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards; art installations including Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery / Recent Art, and Fucking Hell by Jake and Dinos Chapman; and Piotr Uklanski's photo frieze, Untitled (The Nazis).
Key Features:
Broad interdisciplinary approach which includes literature, film, TV and artWide coverage of popular forms and High Art Comparison with earlier material about fascism which reaches back to the 1930s
Why has a fascination with fascism re-emerged after the Cold War? What is its cultural function now, in an era of commemoration? Focusing particularly on the British context, this study offers the first analysis of contemporary popular and literary fiction, film, TV and art exhibitions about Nazis and Nazism. Petra Rau brings this material into dialogue with earlier responses to fascism and demonstrates how, paradoxically, Nazism has been both mediated and mythologised to the extent that it now often replaces a critical engagement with actual, violent history.
In 5 thematic chapters on Nazi Noir, Men in Uniform, Vile Bodies, The Good German and Meta-Cinematic Farce, Rau provides close analysis of contemporary novels such as Jason Lutes' graphic novel series Berlin, historical crime fiction by Philip Kerr and others, Robert Harris' Fatherland, Ian McEwan's Black Dogs and Justin Cartwright's The Song Before It Is Sung; films such as Bryan Singer's Valkyrie and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards; art installations including Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery / Recent Art, and Fucking Hell by Jake and Dinos Chapman; and Piotr Uklanski's photo frieze, Untitled (The Nazis).
Key Features:
Broad interdisciplinary approach which includes literature, film, TV and artWide coverage of popular forms and High Art Comparison with earlier material about fascism which reaches back to the 1930s
Reviews / Votes
This energetically written book will certainly make an important and timely contribution to current debates on the legacy of the Second World War. * Dr Victoria Stewart, University of Leicester *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
486 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-6864-9 (9780748668649)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2013
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Petra Rau is Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of English Modernism, National Identity and the Germans, 1890-1950 (2009) and has published on Freudian poetics, literature about the Second World War and travel writing.
Content
Acknowledgments; List of Illustrations; Introduction: 'Having Your Nazi Cake and Eating It'; 1. Nazi Noir: Hardboiled Masculinity and Fascist Sensibility from Ambler and Greene to Philip Kerr; 2. The Fascist Corpus in the Age of Holocaust Remembrance: Harris' Fatherland and McEwan's Black Dogs; 3. 'Fascism' as Excess and Abjection: Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones; 4. The Good German: The Stauffenberg plot and its discontents; 5. 'Operation Kino': Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds as meta-cinematic farce; Coda; Bibliography; Index.