Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction -- Oprah at Auschwitz; PART ONE -- Generating the Paradigm in Holocaust Discourse; 1- Holocaust Tropes; 2 -- Victim Talk; 3 -- American Survivors; 4 -- Trauma Kitsch; PART TWO -- Television--Watching the Pain of Others on Daytime Talk Shows; 5 -- Talking Cures; 6 -- Trauma Camp; PART THREE -- Popular Literature--Reading the Pain of Others in Misery Memoirs; 7 -- Selling Misery; 8 -- Fake Suffering; 9 -- Forging Child Abuse; 10 -- Simulating Holocaust Survival; Epilogue -- Fantasies of Witnessing; Notes; Index; About the Author
Summary
In Popular Trauma Culture, Anne Rothe argues that American Holocaust discourse has a particular plot structure - characterized by a melodramatic conflict between good and evil and embodied in the core characters of victim/survivor and perpetrator - and that it provides the paradigm for representing personal experiences of pain and suffering in the mass media. The book begins with an analysis of Holocaust clichés, and then explores the embodiment of popular trauma culture in two core mass media genres: daytime TV talk shows and misery memoirs
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-201) and index
