{"title":"‘With a stretched arm. Like Superman, not like Hitler’","authors":"J. Lensen","doi":"10.4324/9781003035169-13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003035169-13","url":null,"abstract":"This essay offers an analysis of the aesthetical and political implications of the seemingly random use of names of figures from Belgian collaborationist history in the novel Astronaut van Oranje (2013) by Flemish authors Andy Fierens and Michael Brijs. More specifically, it investigates the framing of the memory of World War II in Belgium by means of a satirical fantasy story that fuses elements from the dystopian imagination, science fiction, Gothic horror, and popular culture. Drenched in satire, hyperbole, absurdities, coarse humor, and blatant cliches, the novel eschews historiographical relevance and deliberately ignores the sensibilities that govern public and political discourses about this war past. By doing so, so I argue, it offers a provocative engagement with established practices in both Belgian and Flemish cultural memory, implementing what I will call a ‘politics of commemorative irreverence’.","PeriodicalId":346271,"journal":{"name":"World War II in Contemporary German and Dutch Fiction","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129113551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Afterword","authors":"Jan Lensen","doi":"10.4324/9781003035169-14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003035169-14","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":346271,"journal":{"name":"World War II in Contemporary German and Dutch Fiction","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128928500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}