Especially for the post-war German society and the descendants of Nazi-perpetrators, the question of "who we are" was posed anew in many fundamental ways in the face of Nazi crimes. Within the framework of cultural representations of memory after 1945, attempts to decidedly answer the question, "What defines us?" have been in terms of sexuality and gender.1
Memory and memory culture are both inscribed with and interpreted through narratives of gender and sexuality. These narratives equally structure—but not in the same way—representations of survivors, perpetrators, as well as their respective descendants, or those who view themselves as their "heirs" in the field of memory culture. Such an afterlife of history has a subjectivizing effect: it is a key component in the emergence and visualization of gendered (collective) identities and the formation of certain subject positions within memory politics.
When examining contemporary representations of National Socialism, violence, and gender, previously established patterns of representation seem to repeat themselves—patterns that have shaped and continue to shape the debates since 1945. The "already seen" (déjà vu) forces its way into current representations of National Socialism and the Holocaust.
At the same time, the memory of the Nazi past remains a highly politicized field in which narratives of identity are highly contested and subject to frequent shifts. Debates about the politics of remembrance have recently received increased attention. However, issues of gender and sexuality are rarely raised and often left unaddressed. Recently, critical scholarship from Central and Eastern Europe, among others, has repeatedly pointed out how certain narratives of the past, but also gender-specific approaches, can be controversial in academic and public debates.2 So is the case, for example, when remembrance of the persecution and murder of sexual minorities, of the so-called "mentally ill" and "asocials", as well as of Sinti and Roma is confronted with state-sanctioned distortion and disinformation. Instances of indifference or explicit attempts of re-writing can sometimes even culminate in legal action against scholarship on minority perspectives, which fundamentally calls into question research freedom and integrity.3
Recently, such a gender-specific erasure shaped the debate on commemorating lesbian women at the Ravensbrück Memorial. In addition, representation of homosexual victims was omitted from the memorial site of the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp until very recently.
The powerful order of discourses on memory culture adheres to an implicit hierarchy and often does not allow for equal articulation and/or representation whilst relegating some victimized groups to the margins. Such an intersectional perspective shows that practices of denial and marginalization correlate with being rendered invisible due to heteronormativity, ableism, antisemitism and/or racism.
Thus, the question of what is "already seen", of recognizable shifts, and of possible impulses for other, hitherto underrepresented and/or marginalized narratives at the intersection of gender, the Holocaust, and subjectivation is the impetus behind this call for submissions.
The planned issue is interested in contributions from the field of (audio-)visual culture within the thematic scope of (in-)official commemoration, exhibition display, cinematic and artistic representations, or from the broader context of digital history (e.g., in the medium of video games). The notion of déjà vu is understood less as "deception" or "illusion" but rather as repetition and reproduction, as well as textual and visual musealization of certain memory constructions. We connect the question of transmission and canonization with the question of possible ruptures and (de)stabilizations, of controversial shifts and unwanted attentions, and finally of their (subjectivizing) meaning for the respective memory communities.
To what extent are known narratives of gender and sexuality reproduced in current representations of Nazi history and the Holocaust? Are there recognizable ruptures from traditional representations within more recent representations of National Socialism and the Holocaust? To what extent do gendered and sexualized representations of the Holocaust and the Nazi past have a subjectivizing effect on their recipients, on individuals and collectives? And how might their subjectivation change if the representations, and thus the offers for subject formation, shift?
The publication will be peer-reviewed by the editors of FKW.
The deadline for submissions is November 1st, 2022. Please send us an abstract of no more than 3,500 characters as well as a short CV to FKW73@gmx.net.
Submissions in English and German will be accepted.
Notes:
1 Wenk, Silke (2002): „Rhetoriken der Pornografisierung. Rahmungen des Blicks auf die NS-Verbrechen“. In: Eschebach, Insa; Jacobeit, Sigrid; Wenk, Silke (Hg.) (2002): Gedächtnis und Geschlecht. Deutungsmuster in Darstellungen des nationalsozialistischen Genozids. Frankfurt a.M. New York: Campus, S. 269–294.
2 Vgl. Ostrowska, Joanna; Talewicz-Kwiatkowska, Joanna; Van Dijk, Lutz (Hg.) (2020): Erinnern in Auschwitz auch an sexuelle Minderheiten. Berlin: Querverl.
3 Vgl. Engelking, Barbara; Grabowski, Jan; Libionka, Dariusz (Hg.) (2018): Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski [Danach ist nur Nacht. Das Schicksal der Juden in ausgewählten Landkreisen des besetzten Polens], Bd. 1–2, Warschau: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów.