Identifier

etd-06052007-145138

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The Holocaust discourses examined in Who Speaks and Who Listens? Genre, Gender and Memory in Holocaust Discourses perform writing that does something through the presentation of meaningful content and its interaction with the process of the writing act. These discourses are utterances necessarily wedged between the past and the future—between the fear that the traumatic past of the Holocaust recedes too much and the concern with what might become of this past for the generations that follow. The theory of performative memorialization describes how multiple discourses of the Holocaust engage with each other and with the audiences that receive and respond to their testimonies. This dissertation promotes the notion of history and memory as reconstructions that interact through the collaborative tension of process and content to reveal various performative gaps or intrusions, which open spaces for audiences’ responsive understanding, enacting a unique chain of communication that creates a dialogic of history and memory. By studying how these memories of the witnesses are translated into discourse provides knowledge about how memory functions. It provides knowledge about the fallibility of memory, history, and representation, through an examination of the process of writing. Through the application of performative memorialization, this dissertation shows how discourses of the Holocaust are unique because they are increasingly multimodal, and how multimodality maintains the historical and pedagogical relevance of the Holocaust into the present, while also exhibiting the pedagogical implications of examining Holocaust discourses as texts of memorialization.

Date

2007

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Secure the entire work for patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of one year. Student has submitted appropriate documentation which states: During this period the copyright owner also agrees not to exercise her/his ownership rights, including public use in works, without prior authorization from LSU. At the end of the one year period, either we or LSU may request an automatic extension for one additional year. At the end of the one year secure period (or its extension, if such is requested), the work will be released for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Carl Freedman

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.3124

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