At Memory's Edge

After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture

Young James E.

How should Germany commemorate the mass murder of Jews once committed in its name? James E. Young, the only foreigner and the only Jew to serve on the German commission to select a design for a national Holocaust memorial, tells the inside story of this enormously controversial project. Young also inquires deeply into the moral and aesthetic questions surrounding artistic representations of the Holocaust produced by young artists who themselves did not experience it.

About the Author

James E. Young, professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is also the author of "The Texture of Memory", published by Yale University Press, which won the National Jewish Book Award.

Reviews

"The brilliance of James Young's theoretical insights is matched by his outstanding knowledge of the vast array of representations of the Shoah and by his artistic and literary sensitivity. At Memory's Edge will become an influential book" – Saul Friedlander

"Young's book needs no extra boost, and yet this recent debate over the meaning of German nationalism gives his subject another dimension of topicality, proving again how accurately discussions of art can pinpoint all that's buried just beneath the surface of everyday life" – Robert Leiter, New York Times Book Review

"A beautifully written and illustrated book that tells us something profound about the featured artistic projects and their contexts" – Natasha Lehrer, Jewish Quarterly

"This book provides for further study of the nature and meanings of memory, and on the way contemporary artists contribute to the broad and growing discussion of what memory is" – Jay Winter, Art Bulletin

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