Jul 31, 2017 By: yunews
Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, associate professor of English at , presented a paper at the Sixth World Congress on Polish Studies Conference in Krakow, Poland, June 16-18, 2017. The conference was co-organized by The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America, The Polska Akademia Umiej臋tno艣ci and The University of Gda艅sk.
The paper, titled 鈥淪ymptomatology and Phenomenology of Memory Post-1977: Baader Meinhof and the 鈥榃onderful, Wonderful Times鈥,鈥 investigates, through German literature and film, various modes of remembering and confronting events in 1977 in West Germany that led to acts of terror and the suicide/murder of the urban guerrilla 鈥淏aader Meinhof鈥 group in prison.
Stewart investigates the relationship between German society鈥檚 confrontations with the Holocaust (or lack thereof) during the post-war 鈥渆conomic miracle鈥 and the rise of the Baader Meinhof group as representative of the conflicts between German youth and their parent generation (to whom they referred as the 鈥淎uschwitz generation鈥).
She posits that the dysfunctions of German memory regarding the two collective traumas鈥擭azism/Holocaust and the 鈥淕erman Autumn鈥 in 1977鈥攁re related and suggests more study of Oedipal relations that have historically resulted in specific modes of psychic identifications with power and violence in German society as these are represented in literature, film, and philosophy.
In other news, Stewart has been invited to submit an essay for an upcoming open issue (Vol. 29, 2017) of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (edited by Elizabeth Weed and Ellen Rooney at Duke University Press). The essay is titled 鈥淯nheimlichkeit in Kinderheim and Stammheim: Memories of Baader Meinhof.鈥
