3G. Positions of the Third Generation after the Second World War and the Shoah in Contemporary Literature and Arts

• Applicant: Dr. Luisa Banki
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449021488

The network’s research deals with the transdisciplinary and systematizing analysis and interpretation of literary, visual, filmic and performance works of the third generation (3G) after the Second World War and the Shoah. In their works, the grandchildren of former perpetrators, victims and bystanders of National Socialism position themselves in a manner distinct from former generations with regards to both the remembrance and representation of the Shoah and the World War and their own present. With a view to the past, works of the third generation are dominated by a consciousness of the mediality of remembrance that is self-reflexively presented, while the memory-work of the writers and artists is often connected to contemporary conflicts and thus linked to their own present. Notwithstanding the radically different experiences and cultures of remembrance that descendants of victims and perpetrators of National Socialism draw on respectively, it is – such is a fundamental conviction of the network’s research – possible to speak of a third generation whose commemorative work is characterized by an awareness that communicative memory is ending and that therefore medial imparting of knowledge and remembrance is necessary. The collection, analysis and contextualization of the 3G-corpus, which is as such systematically collected and examined for the first time in a German speaking research context, will be methodically complemented by the transfer of knowledge and ideas between scholarly, literary, journalistic, artistic and curatorial work. The network’s activities will for this reason take the form of workshops and conferences that are complemented by an accompanying program of readings, film screening, writers’ / artists’ talks and round table discussions.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks