Books by Joanne Sayner
Greta Kuckhoff belonged to the anti-Nazi resistance group 'The Red Orchestra' and was condemned t... more Greta Kuckhoff belonged to the anti-Nazi resistance group 'The Red Orchestra' and was condemned to death in 1943. Her sentence was later commuted to imprisonment and she was liberated by the Red Army in 1945. She spent the next thirty years working to commemorate the group’s antifascist resistance. Through radio broadcasts, letters, exhibitions, journal articles, film, and autobiography, she fought against Cold War narratives which condemned the group as traitors or hailed them as Soviet spies. Using previously unpublished archival sources, this book traces the fascinating life writings of this key figure from the GDR. It draws attention to gendered politics of remembering, to the role of memories of the Holocaust, and to the political identities offered by these diverse forms of commemoration. In doing so, it provocatively intervenes in the contentious debates about remembering antifascism in contemporary Germany.
Who remembers, and how? Debates about the role of memory as history - and of literature as memory... more Who remembers, and how? Debates about the role of memory as history - and of literature as memory - have increasingly come to fascinate those interested in how we look at our pasts as a means for understanding the present. Women without a Past? brings together for the first time autobiographies written by seven women who experienced Nazism from different perspectives: Elfriede Brüning, Hilde Huppert, Greta Kuckhoff, Elisabeth Langgässer, Melita Maschmann, Inge Scholl, and Grete Weil. Their autobiographies provoke diverse and challenging answers to questions about who remembers what, when, where, how and on behalf of whom. This book foregrounds the positive political potential of re-reading well-known texts and seeking out reasons why others have been marginalized. It examines autobiography as a form of writing at the very centre of contemporary debates on the 'self', 'truth' and 'history'. Women without a Past? offers new insights into the politics of memory and autobiography, and will be of particular interest to researchers and students engaging with women's writing and memories of Nazism.
Reviewed in: Gender & History, Monatshefte, German Quarterly, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Debatte, H-German.
Reviewers’ comments: ‘Sayner writes with ease and confidence’, ‘Sayner’s book impresses with its close textual readings and stringent argumentation’, ‘insightful’, ‘provocative re-readings of known texts’ and ‘painstakingly detailed analysis’, ‘a vital source’.
Abstracts by Joanne Sayner
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2018
In recent years memory studies scholars have begun to focus on how silence is an integral part of... more In recent years memory studies scholars have begun to focus on how silence is an integral part of processes of remembering. As places of memory we would expect museums to be at the heart of such debates. However, until now there has been no systematic attempt to delineate different ways that silence is present and operating within museums. In this article we draw on a series of international examples to ask how the specifics of museums as forms of media, representation and cultural practice produce certain kinds of silences. We focus on eight ways of thinking about silence in museums: silences in the historical record as collected by museums; museums being silenced by external pressures; museums’ collusion in society’s silences; museums using silence obliquely; museums thinking they have nothing to say; silence by design; museums staying respectfully silent; and communities wishing to remain silent. By bringing these silences together and exploring how they come into focus in individual museums at different points in time we hope to provoke future work within museum studies which looks at the intersections between different silences across and between museums and geographical contexts and, in doing so, contributes to the wider debates in memory studies.
Research Networks by Joanne Sayner
Workshop Reports by Joanne Sayner
Papers by Joanne Sayner
Emotion, Affective Practices, and the Past in the Present
Women without a Past?, 2007
Women without a Past?, 2007
Uploads
Books by Joanne Sayner
Reviewed in: Gender & History, Monatshefte, German Quarterly, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Debatte, H-German.
Reviewers’ comments: ‘Sayner writes with ease and confidence’, ‘Sayner’s book impresses with its close textual readings and stringent argumentation’, ‘insightful’, ‘provocative re-readings of known texts’ and ‘painstakingly detailed analysis’, ‘a vital source’.
Abstracts by Joanne Sayner
Research Networks by Joanne Sayner
Workshop Reports by Joanne Sayner
Papers by Joanne Sayner
Reviewed in: Gender & History, Monatshefte, German Quarterly, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Debatte, H-German.
Reviewers’ comments: ‘Sayner writes with ease and confidence’, ‘Sayner’s book impresses with its close textual readings and stringent argumentation’, ‘insightful’, ‘provocative re-readings of known texts’ and ‘painstakingly detailed analysis’, ‘a vital source’.