Living with “the Post-Holocaust DNA”: Eleanor Reissa’s (Auto-)Biographical Translation of the European Past into American Present in The Last Survivor

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F47813059%3A19240%2F23%3AA0001148" target="_blank" >RIV/47813059:19240/23:A0001148 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Living with “the Post-Holocaust DNA”: Eleanor Reissa’s (Auto-)Biographical Translation of the European Past into American Present in The Last Survivor

Original language description

The paper discusses the forms and impact of the post-Holocaust trauma in the theatrical production of a current playwright, Yiddishist, singer, and director Eleanor Reissa. Her collection The Last Survivor and Other Modern Jewish Plays (2015) offers to a large extent (auto)biographical representation of various types of traumatic experience of the Holocaust survivors and as well as the impact of the intergenerational trauma transmission on their descendants. The paper focuses on the complex representation of multiple layers of trauma on a personal, communal, and national level, addressing the negotiations of ethnic, national, and gender identities. It further explores the medium of drama, more specifically the use of dramatic methods that enhance the sense of immediacy and heighten the impact of the utterances. Reissa’s non-didactic and deeply personal approach in connection with the use of dramatic monologues demonstrate the topicality of the Holocaust-related trauma, and more importantly, highlights the role of trauma in the identity-making process, which is both personal and universal. Besides featuring of the traumatic experience, the paper discusses the attempts at healing and the coping mechanisms, including breaking the silence and sharing of stories, that prevent the trauma from becoming the major determinant of one’s identity and empower the protagonists to live in the present.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60206 - Specific literatures

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Transformations of Trauma in Women's Writing

ISBN

9781527591622

Number of pages of the result

12

Pages from-to

63-74

Number of pages of the book

169

Publisher name

Cambridge Scholars

Place of publication

Cambridge

UT code for WoS chapter

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