Curriculum and the Holocaust : competing sites of memory and representation

Working at an intersection of curriculum theory, post-Freudian psychoanalysis, and object relations theory, examines ways in which the Holocaust is represented in texts written by historians and by novelists. Argues that memory is the larger category under which history is subsumed, and that works by historians and novelists share many common features. Although the historian and the novelist are constrained by their disciplines, both operate out of their own memories, and for both, psychological transference, repression, denial, projection, and reversal shape personal memories and may therefore determine the ways in which they construct the past. The way the Holocaust is represented in curricula is the way it is remembered. Argues against redemptive representation of the Holocaust and for a dystopic curriculum in education as well as representation, which does not contain "rhetoric of hope" and is a "testament to despair and truthfulness." Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-236) and indexes. xii, 270 pages ; 24 cm.