LEADER 03813cam a2200373Ia 4500001 40184 005 20240621144347.0 008 991123s1997 xx r 000 0 eng d 035 (OCoLC)42879117 035 40184 049 LHMA 040 LHM |beng |erda |cLHM 090 PN1997.S3133 |bG78 1997 100 1 Grunfeld, Uriel J. 245 10 Representing the Holocaust on film : |bSchindler's list and the pedagogy of popular memory / |cby Uriel J. Grunfeld. 264 1 [Place of publication not identified] : |b[publisher not identified], |c1997. 300 iv, 181 pages 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 502 Thesis (Ph. D.)--Pennsylvania State University, 1997. 504 Includes bibliographical references (pages 176-181). 520 The following enquiry aims to identify some of the conditions under which narrative constructions of popular memory either enable or disable the exercise of critical awareness and agency. This critical perspective, in turn, raises the following pedagogical challenge: that we should learn how to distinguish between commemorative practices which function as mechanisms of denial and those which are conducive to the working through of collective trauma. Specifically, this investigation examines the narrative representation of the Holocaust in Steven Spielberg's film, Schindler's List. Two different readings of the film are offered in the course of the analysis. The first reading demonstrates how Schindler's List has been appropriated by educational discourse in the USA in a manner that is consistent with mainstream liberal ideology, which preaches tolerance and equates agency with individual moral choice. The second reading makes use of a hermeneutic approach in order to analyze how the film text itself constrains the possible constructions of meaning which surround it. The purpose, in this case, is to examine how the Hollywood narrative code, employed by the film, utilizes a variety of rhetorical means which typically uphold the status quo, as they reproduce the same scheme of power relations as that which prevails within the dominant culture. The two critical readings of Schindler's List reveal the limitations of the liberal agenda and of the Hollywood narrative code, respectively, as they both fall short of providing the conditions for the collective trauma of the Holocaust to be properly worked through. This enquiry concludes with the observation that historical narratives must fulfill certain key requirements, if they are intended in any way to meet the challenge of critical pedagogy, as outlined above. First, the historical narrative must testify to the irreducible specificity of the events which it describes, even as it avoids making general moral and educational statements about the meaning of those events; second, the historical narrative must produce an open discursive space within which we, as subjects of history, may insert ourselves as witnesses i.e., agents of memory) who participate in the continual, ongoing interrogation and reconstruction of that selfsame narrative. 530 Electronic version(s) |bavailable internally at USHMM. 533 Photocopy. |bAnn Arbor, Mich. : |cUMI Dissertation Services, |d1999. |e22 cm. 590 Dissertations and Theses 591 Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024 630 00 Schindler's list (Motion picture) 856 41 |uhttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=739929811&sid=51&Fmt=6&clientId=54617&RQT=309&VName=PQD |zElectronic version from ProQuest 956 41 |u http://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib40184/9732283.pdf |z Hosted by USHMM. 994 E0 |bLHM 852 0 |bstacks |hPN1997.S3133 G78 1997 852 |bwww 852 |bebook