Book Launch: Eva Maria Altmann, Das Unsagbare Verschweigen
at the Perpetrator Studies Network, Utrecht University
response by Juliane Prade-Weiss
31 March 2022, 17:00 CET, via zoom
view recording on the PSN book launch youtube channel
Perpetrators are everywhere in contemporary popular culture — and in scholarship. This omnipresence of perpetrator representations calls for critical reflection, particularly in cases where they invite identification. A paradigmatic case of this ambivalent trend is the recent proliferation of Holocaust literature told from the perpetrators’ perspective.
In this book, Altmann develops an interdisciplinary model of close textual analysis that pays careful attention to perpetrator rhetoric, the role of empathy and sympathy in perpetrator representation, and to how literary devices such as unreliable narration allow for an immanent deconstruction of perpetrator discourse.
The event will be moderated by Susanne Knittel.
The book is written in German, but the presentation and discussion will take place in English.