Newcastle
A reading of Bankside though the eyes of WG Sebald
WG Sebald’s fictional works confront issues of historical amnesia through the exploration of architectural ruins. Sebald believed that without ruins and without proper confrontation of history through literature, Germany threatened to lose an awareness of its recent history. In reaction, he published four fictional works in which use encounters with ruins reveal repressed historical events. As a counterpoint to the popular narrative of progress that characterises the Bankside Power Station regeneration into the Tate Modern Art Gallery, this dissertation comprises a Sebaldian reading of Bankside, which re-conceptualises its history and positions its existence as a ruin between 1981 and 1993.
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