Uncanny Reminders: The 'Nazi' in Popular Culture

The ubiquity of the ‘Nazi’ – the fictional Doppelgänger of the historical Nazi – in the various media of popular culture is both disturbing and fascinating. There is an important relationship between the ‘Nazi’ and its audience; related to but separate from the historical Nazi, the creation and reception of the ‘Nazi’ both enables and exemplifies the continual processing of the past. Using a purpose-built framework (concept and terminology) for the study of the ‘Nazi’ as a phenomenon in and of itself, in combination with Freud’s concept of the uncanny, this thesis examines the dynamics of the relationship between the ‘Nazi’ and its audience in four examples: television episodes “Deaths-Head Revisited,” “He’s Alive” (The Twilight Zone), and “Patterns of Force” (Star Trek); and Serdar Somuncu’s performances/readings of Mein Kampf. The temporal and geographical context of the episodes (1960s America) seem far removed from Somuncu’s performances (1990s/2000s Germany), but analysing the production and effects of the uncanny moments generated in each case reveals a provocative raison d’être that spans across the geographical and temporal divide.

Author dc:creator

• Tobler, Tamara Lynn

Advisor dc:contributor.supervisor

• Thorson, Helga

• Serdar Somuncu
• Mein Kampf
• uncanny
• Star Trek
• The Twilight Zone
• Sigmund Freud
• Nazi
• Patterns of Force
• Deaths-Head Revisited
• He's Alive

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/

Language dc:language.iso

en, English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1828/5563

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/5563