Anne Frank Unbound

Description

Creative responses to one of the world's most widely read books

Connect with the Anne Frank Unbound Facebook page Read an excerpt from the book Listen to an IU Press podcast with Jeffrey Shandler.

As millions of people around the world who have read her diary attest, Anne Frank, the most familiar victim of the Holocaust, has a remarkable place in contemporary memory. Anne Frank Unbound looks beyond this young girl's words at the numerous ways people have engaged her life and writing. Apart from officially sanctioned works and organizations, there exists a prodigious amount of cultural production, which encompasses literature, art, music, film, television, blogs, pedagogy, scholarship, religious ritual, and comedy. Created by both artists and amateurs, these responses to Anne Frank range from veneration to irreverence. Although at times they challenge conventional perceptions of her significance, these works testify to the power of Anne Frank, the writer, and Anne Frank, the cultural phenomenon, as people worldwide forge their own connections with the diary and its author.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Anne Frank, The Phenomenon
Part I: Mediating
1. From Diary to Book: Text, Object, Structure Jeffrey Shandler
2. From Page to Stage Edna Nahshon
3. In Moving Images Leshu Torchin
Part II: Remembering
4. Hauntings and Sitings in Germany Henri Lustiger Thaler and Wilfried Wiedemann
5. Teaching Anne Frank in America Ilana Abramovitch
6. Anne Frank as Icon, from Human Rights to Holocaust Denial Brigitte Sion
7. Anne Frank, a Guest at the Seder Liora Gubkin
Part III: Imagining
8. Literary Afterlives of Anne Frank Sara R. Horowitz
9. Suturing In: Anne Frank as Conceptual Model for Visual Art Daniel Belasco
10. Sounds from the Secret Annex: Composing a Young Girl's Thoughts Judah M. Cohen
Part IV: Contesting
11. Critical Thinking: Scholars Reread the Diary Sally Charnow
12. Anne Frank on Crank: Comic Anxieties Edward Portnoy
Epilogue: The Anne Frank Tree—A Life of Its Own Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
End Notes
Musicography Judah M. Cohen
Videography Aviva Weintraub
Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• HISTORY
• Jews

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 25 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780253007551
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ANNE FRANK UNBOUND
THE MODERN JEWISH EXPERIENCE Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore, editors
ANNE FRANK UNBOUND
MEDIA IMAGINATION MEMORY
Edited by
BARBARA KIRSHENBLATT-GIMBLETT AND JEFFREY SHANDLER
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Bloomington, Indiana
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iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
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2012 by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anne Frank unbound : media, imagination, memory / edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler.
p. cm.
This volume of essays was developed from ... a colloquium convened in 2005 by the Working Group on Jews, Media, and Religion of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University -Intr.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00661-5 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00739-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00755-1 (eb) 1. Frank, Anne, 1929- 1945-Congresses. I. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. II. Shandler, Jeffrey.
DS135.N6F73186 2012
940.53 18092-dc23
2012018657
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
IN MEMORY OF Barbara Rose Haum
(1962-2008)
a gifted artist and a giving colleague
Expulsion, by Barbara Rose Haum, from the artist s solo exhibition at the Kommunalen Galerie im Leinwandhaus, Frankfurt am Main, in 1992. Each image was paired with a text from the Bible. Accompanying this piece was the following passage: And he said: when you deliver the Hebrew women look at the birthstool, if it is a son kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live. (Exodus 1:16) Used with permission of Henri Lustiger Thaler
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction: Anne Frank, the Phenomenon
I. MEDIATING
1 From Diary to Book: Text, Object, Structure
Jeffrey Shandler
2 Anne Frank from Page to Stage
Edna Nahshon
3 Anne Frank s Moving Images
Leshu Torchin
II. REMEMBERING
4 Hauntings of Anne Frank: Sitings in Germany
Henri Lustiger Thaler and Wilfried Wiedemann
5 Teaching Anne Frank in the United States
Ilana Abramovitch
6 Anne Frank as Icon, from Human Rights to Holocaust Denial
Brigitte Sion
7 Anne Frank, a Guest at the Seder
Liora Gubkin
III. IMAGINING
8 Literary Afterlives of Anne Frank
Sara R. Horowitz
9 Suturing In: Anne Frank as Conceptual Model for Visual Art
Daniel Belasco
10 Sounds from the Secret Annex: Composing a Young Girl s Thoughts
Judah M. Cohen
IV. CONTESTING
11 Critical Thinking: Scholars Reread the Diary
Sally Charnow
12 Anne Frank on Crank: Comic Anxieties
Edward Portnoy
Epilogue: A Life of Its Own-The Anne Frank Tree
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
NOTES
MUSICOGRAPHY
Judah M. Cohen
VIDEOGRAPHY
Aviva Weintraub
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
Acknowledgments
This volume of essays was developed from presentations at Mediating Anne Frank, a colloquium convened in 2005 by the Working Group on Jews, Media, and Religion of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University. We are most grateful to Faye Ginsburg, Angela Zito, and Barbara Abrash of the Center for Religion and Media for their support both of this colloquium and of the working group s many activities during the six years of its existence. During this period, dozens of scholars and artists presented their work on topics ranging from Jewish postcards to televangelist rabbis, Jewish film festivals to virtual worship in Second Life. Members of the working group convened four public colloquia and organized sessions at other scholarly conferences, produced a thematic issue of the journal Material Religion , and created a website ( http://modiya.nyu.edu ) dedicated to teaching and researching this emerging subject of scholarly inquiry.
Anne Frank Unbound exemplifies the working group s commitment to innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches to studying phenomena at the intersection of religion and media, broadly defined. We are indebted to this volume s contributors, both those who participated in the 2005 colloquium and those whose contributions were added subsequently, for their thoughtful work and their patience with the realization of this volume. We likewise thank the other participants in the original colloquium-Barbara Abrash, Michael Beckerman, Jeffrey Feldman, Faye Ginsburg, Judith Goldstein, Barbara Rose Haum, Jenna Weissman Joselit, Mark Kligman, Faye Lederman, and Nicholas Mirzoeff-for sharing their insights.
We are most grateful to Dasha Chapman for her assistance with permissions research and to Matt Jones for his photography. For their generous assistance in the realization of Anne Frank Unbound , we thank the Anne Frank Schule Rivierenbuurt, Amsterdam; Marc Aronson; The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Jim DeLong and Jon Erickson, The Anne Frank Wall Project, Bret Harte Middle School, San Jose, California; Jonathan Gribetz; Jim Hoberman; Mark Hurvitz; and Dr. Shelly Zer-Zion, The Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing Arts, Tel-Aviv University. We are especially grateful to the following artists for their kind permission to reproduce their artwork: Abshalom Jac Lahav, Joe Lewis III, Keith Mayerson, Ellen Rothenberg, and Rachel Schreiber, and to Stuart Schear for kindly arranging funding for the color section of this book. It has been a special pleasure to work with Janet Rabinowitch and Peter Froelich at Indiana University Press.
ANNE FRANK UNBOUND
A wax figure of Anne Frank, in front of photographs of Anne as a child, on its first day of display at Madame Tussauds in Berlin, Germany, December 19, 2008. Getty Images Photographer: Sean Gallup
Introduction: Anne Frank, the Phenomenon
The list is daunting. Dozens of musical compositions, ranging from oratorio to indie rock. A dramatization given hundreds of productions annually. Thousands of YouTube videos. A museum visited by millions. To these, add a growing number of works of fine art, biography, fiction, poetry, and dance, as well as films, radio and television broadcasts, and websites. Plus tributes in the form of commemorative coins, stamps, and other collectibles, memorial sites and organizations around the world, eponymous streets, schools, and institutions, to say nothing of a day, a week, a rose, a tulip, countless trees, a whole forest, . . . and a village. 1 All inspired by a book that has been translated into scores of languages, published in hundreds of editions, printed in tens of millions of copies, and ranked as one of the most widely read books on the planet.
These wide-ranging engagements with Anne Frank s life and work are a phenomenon of interest in its own right and exceptional in several ways. To begin with, few public figures have inspired connections that are as extensive and as diverse, ranging from veneration to sacrilege. The expression of these connections can be playfully creative or can conform to well-established convention, and they are often deeply personal at the same time that they validate their subject s iconic stature. Among the handful of people who have inspired this extraordinary kind of engagement-Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley-Anne Frank never participated, even indirectly, in her renown. The widespread interest in her rests largely on a single effort-her wartime diary-which no one else had read and few even knew existed during her brief life.
Within a few years of its first publication in 1947, the diary appeared in many editions and translations from the original Dutch, reaching millions of readers. Soon thereafter it won international acclaim for its official dramatization and filming. Widespread engagement with the diary continues, even as the text made available to the public has changed. When it first appeared in 1995, the English-language translation of the diary s Definitive Edition , touted as the first complete and intimate version of the beloved writer s coming-of-age, characterized the text as a world classic and a timeless testament. The diary s Revised Critical Edition , first published in English in 2003, exhorted readers: Anne Frank has lived on-in the minds and hearts of millions of people all over the world. 2 Today, people receiving a copy of the diary learn that they are joining a vast international body of readers of a masterwork and devotees of the author. To read the diary-or to see a play, film, or exhibition about Anne Frank, to discuss her diary in a classroom or hear her name invoked in a poem, song, or religious service-is to encounter and share in this phenomenon.
The Anne Frank phenomenon shows no sign of abating. Tributes to Anne Frank now reach to the heavens (an asteroid was named for her in 1995), she has become a fixture of new social media (a Facebook page was created for her in 2008), and her diary garners ever more prestigious accolades (it was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, along with the Magna Carta and the Nibelungenlied , in 2009). 3 As this book went to press, two writers, Shalom Auslander and Nathan Englander, published works of fiction in which Anne Frank figures prominently, as an immortal presence haunting a contemporary American Jewish family s home and an epitomizing test case of personal loyalty, respectively; 4 newspapers report th