In Transit
Sebald, Trauma, and Cinema
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249183 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Allen Meek (0000-0002-6293-4795, Massey University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 101 |
| Publication date | 2017-12-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h6040101 |
| OpenAlex | W2781254945 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
Because Sebald’s books are preoccupied with historical catastrophe, particularly the Holocaust, critical commentaries have often interpreted them in terms of the transmission of traumatic memory. But this stress on the temporal relay from past to present and future generations has drawn attention away from the emphasis on space and travel in Sebald’s work. In order to address this gap in Sebald criticism, this essay discusses three films that adapt and respond to Sebald’s work: Patience (After Sebald) (directed by Grant Gee, 2012), Terezin (directed by Daniel Blaufuks, 2010) and Austerlitz (directed by Stan Neumann, 2015). Because of the cinema’s constant movement between images and places, these films allow us to see more clearly the aspects of Sebald’s writings concerned with traveling and making connections between different archival spaces. The journeys in Sebald’s books and in these films inspired by them go beyond human life worlds to include non-human creatures, and beyond the realms of the living to include those inhabited by the dead. This suspension of the boundary between life and death, along with the restless movement from place to place, creates a relationship to memory and history that cannot be limited to the model of traumatic transmission
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Contingency · Criticism · Epistemology · Literature · Movie theater · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · The Holocaust · Theology · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Literature and Cultural Memory · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |