German Cinema - Terror and Trauma: Cultural Memory since 1945
Thomas Elsaesser, German Cinema - Terror And Trauma: Cultural Memory Since 1945 (Routledge, 2013) 352 pp.
In German Cinema – Terror and Trauma: Cultural Memory Since 1945 Thomas Elsaesser re-evaluates the meaning of the Holocaust for postwar German films and culture, while offering a reconsideration of trauma theory today. Elsaesser argues that Germany's attempts at "mastering the past" can be seen as both a failure and an achievement, making it appropriate to speak of an ongoing 'guilt management' that includes not only Germany, but Europe as a whole.
About Thomas Elsaesser
Born in Berlin in 1943, I was educated at Heidelberg University and the University of Sussex (U.K.), where I received a B.A. in English Literature in 1966, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1971. After working as a film critic in London and editing the international film journal Monogram, I taught European Romanticism and Literary Modernism in Comparative Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1972 onwards. In 1976 I initiated Film Studies at the University of East Anglia, chaired Film Studies until 1986, and was in charge of the Master's and Ph.D. programme in Cinema from 1980 to 1991.