Sites of the Uncanny

Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts is the first book-length study that examines Celans impact on visual culture. Exploring poetrys relation to film, painting and architecture, this study tracks the transformation of Celan in postwar German culture and shows the extent to which his poetics accompany the countrys memory politics after the Holocaust. The book posits a new theoretical model of the Holocaustal uncanny evolving out of a crossing between Celan, Freud, Heidegger and Levinas that provides a map for entering other modes of Holocaust representations. After probing Celans critique of the uncanny in Heidegger, this study shifts to the translation of Celans uncanny poetics in Resnais film Night and Fog, Kiefers art and Libeskinds architecture.