Dark Lens

Imaging Germany, 1945

AvFrançoise Meltzer

Häftad, Engelska, 2021

264 kr

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Beskrivning

Esteemed scholar Françoise Meltzer examines images of war ruins in Nazi Germany and the role that images play in how we construct memories of war. The ruins of war have long held the power to stupefy and appall. Can such ruins ever be persuasively depicted and comprehended? Can images of ruins force us to identify with the suffering of the enemy and raise uncomfortable questions about forgiveness and revenge? Françoise Meltzer explores these questions in Dark Lens, which uses the images of war ruins in Nazi Germany to investigate problems of aestheticization and the representation of catastrophe. Through texts that give accounts of bombed-out towns in Germany in the last years of the war, painters’ attempts to depict the destruction, and her own mother’s photographs taken in 1945, Meltzer asks if any medium offers a direct experience of war ruins for the viewer. Refreshingly accessible and deeply personal, Dark Lens is a compelling look at the role images play in constructing memory.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2021-12-05
Mått:152 x 229 x 18 mm
Vikt:313 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:256
Förlag:The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:9780226816852

Utforska kategorier

Andra världskriget inom Historia och arkeologi
Fotoböcker inom Kultur
Modern militärhistoria inom Historia och arkeologi

Mer om författaren

Françoise Meltzer is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, professor in the Divinity School and the College, and chair of comparative literature at the University of Chicago.

Recensioner i media

“It is the ‘righteous pleasure in retribution’ that worries Meltzer in Dark Lens, a work of scholarship organized around a collection of previously unpublished amateur photographs, taken by Jeanne Dumilieu (the author’s mother), that feature ruins in the wake of the Allied bombings of Germany. . . . Our gaze is precisely what Meltzer is interested in investigating. What and how do we see when we see these photos? Can we even see the ruin as such? This proposition suggests a provocative way of rereading the history of interest in and representation of ruins. Perhaps our enduring obsession with them—and our drive to depict and behold them—is fueled by our very inability to reckon with destruction.”

Innehållsförteckning

What I RememberBy Way of Beginning1 When Words Fail: Writing Disaster2 Ruination in Painting: Making the Unspeakable Visible3 Through a Lens, Darkly: Texts and Images4 Suffering and VictimizationForegone and Other ConclusionsAppendixAcknowledgmentsBibliographyIndex