Comparative Studies Alumnus, Lucas Wilson, Publishes Article in Studies in American Jewish Literature
Wednesday, Dec 13, 2023
Comparative Studies Alumnus, Lucas Wilson, has published a new journal article in Studies in American Jewish Literature.
This article presents a theoretical formulation that names an experience that is common to many third-generation protagonists in the literature written by the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors: postnostalgia. Postnostalgia is an adopted 鈥渘ostalgia鈥濃攖hough it not actually nostalgia鈥攆or a place and a time that descendants have never lived but long for as if they have. This almost-form of 鈥渘ostalgia鈥 is powerful because it is an affective and persistent response to the particular places to which they are connected, given how their families once occupied those milieus. This article treats Jonathan Safran Foer鈥檚 Everything Is Illuminated, which serves as a representation of how third-generation protagonists commonly attempt to discover pre-Shoah life by visiting the sites of family life in their family鈥檚 native lands. This formulation of postnostalgia offers insight into how survivors鈥 descendants in third-generation literature have responded to their inherited traumas, elucidating the common phenomenon of what is referred to as 鈥減ilgrimages鈥 to sites of pre-Shoah family life.
Click to read the article here: /artsandletters/comparativestudies/pdf/wilsonarticledec2023.pdf
This article presents a theoretical formulation that names an experience that is common to many third-generation protagonists in the literature written by the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors: postnostalgia. Postnostalgia is an adopted 鈥渘ostalgia鈥濃攖hough it not actually nostalgia鈥攆or a place and a time that descendants have never lived but long for as if they have. This almost-form of 鈥渘ostalgia鈥 is powerful because it is an affective and persistent response to the particular places to which they are connected, given how their families once occupied those milieus. This article treats Jonathan Safran Foer鈥檚 Everything Is Illuminated, which serves as a representation of how third-generation protagonists commonly attempt to discover pre-Shoah life by visiting the sites of family life in their family鈥檚 native lands. This formulation of postnostalgia offers insight into how survivors鈥 descendants in third-generation literature have responded to their inherited traumas, elucidating the common phenomenon of what is referred to as 鈥減ilgrimages鈥 to sites of pre-Shoah family life.
Click to read the article here: /artsandletters/comparativestudies/pdf/wilsonarticledec2023.pdf