The notion of Guardianship within the oeuvre of W. G. Sebald

This thesis investigates the concept of guardianship, a new notion belonging to the academic discipline of Memory Studies, and its relation to the work of German academic and writer W. G. Sebald (1944-2001). Guardianship is concerned with how memory is interpreted across space and time and how this transmission affects specific characters within Sebald’s literary oeuvre, namely his four prose narratives: Vertigo (1990), The Emigrants (1992), The Rings of Saturn (1995), and Austerlitz (2001).

By examining the concept through different theoretical lenses, and considering existing Sebald scholarship relevant to specific areas of interest, the aim of the thesis is to uncover how characters within Sebald’s prose oeuvre deal with the memories they encounter and the sense of responsibility they feel towards the preservation of these acts of remembrance. This thesis will also highlight the fluidity of the concept of guardianship and how, like memory, it changes and adapts in different situations and for different characters affected. The intention of the research is to show that guardianship can also be used as a conceptual framework away from the study of Sebald’s oeuvre and adapted to other academic studies within the discipline of Memory Studies.