Barnes & Noble

Unwanted Beauty: Aesthetic Pleasure in Holocaust Representation (University of Illinois Press, 2007), argues that thinking about the role of aesthetic pleasure in complex Holocaust art, literature and monuments/memorials opens this traumatic historical event to deeper understanding. Many readers and viewers of Holocaust literature, art, and memorials confess the aesthetic power of art encourages them to remember the Holocaust rather than shunt it aside. But how can we understand the incredible beauty of much Holocaust art? And is there something indecent or unethical about this beauty? I argue that beautiful representations can deepen rather than detract from Holocaust remembrance. Unwanted Beauty made an impact on how representations of trauma—including but not limited to the Holocaust—are created and perceived. This book offered the hope that beautiful works would deepen our understanding of our endless capacity both to create suffering and to heal wounds.

“Kaplan’s stance that the work of memory is enriched by aesthetic pleasure offers a fresh perspective in a field that conversely emphasizes how second-generation witnesses are drawn by the desire to feel the Holocaust’s horror in order to sustain its legacy. Her astute readings of the relation between memory, mourning, and witnessing the Holocaust also Christianity provide keen insights into the intersection between trauma and the aesthetic complexities of the artwork. Unwanted Beauty is a significant contribution not only for scholars of the Holocaust, but also for those interested in the interplay between aesthetics, witnessing, and historical violence.” -- Eric Kligerman, Women’s Studies Quarterly

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"A provocative meditation on a fraught subject . . . essential reading for scholars and artists searching for the impossible line between what Susan Sontag has termed an 'easy delight' in the contemplation of atrocity, and the illuminating potential of the aesthetic. Kaplan goes beyond what Holocaust scholars have named the 'crisis of representation,' and beyond the prevalent demonization of beauty in art about the Holocaust, to show that an 'unwanted' or disturbing beauty can ward off forgetting and that pleasure need not preclude understanding." -- Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University

"Plumbs more profoundly, more insightfully than any single work I know, the questions of aesthetics that have simultaneously frustrated and shaped our study of Holocaust art and literature. Informed deeply by age-old philosophical debates of mimetic pleasure, Kaplan also brings a fresh and keen eye to contemporary art and literature. Gracefully and lucidly written in its own right, her argument for more representation and beauty, not less, pushes the entire conversation to a higher, more challenging level still. I recommend it wholeheartedly." -- James E. Young, author of The Texture of Memory

"Addresses head-on the vexing problem of how to represent historical trauma in art. Kaplan's five lucidly written chapters on canonical Holocaust writers, artists, and key debates about Holocaust representation are provocative and meticulously executed." -- Ulrich Baer, author of Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma

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"This book is a gracefully written addition to the growing discourse on aesthetic anxiety in relation to the representation of atrocity and traumatic events such as war, genocide, famine, hurricanes, and other forms of natural disaster or man-made violence. . . . Kaplan's text tackles a large and ambitious subject that has broad and important implications today." -- H-German 

"Confronted with the enormity of the questions posed by the Holocaust it is inevitable that we experience the difficulty of understanding. . . . Kaplan confronts the inevitable difficulty of understanding and reminds us that should we ever cease trying, then indeed we would be lost." -- Art and Christianity