Re: Announcement for Film Conference Summer 2009

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From: Powell, Larson [powelllar <at> umkc.edu]

The Fifth Biennial East German Film Summer Film Institute

DEFA Film Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst

July 12-19, 2009
2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Cold War.  As its ideological divisions and artistic
legacies come into clearer view, previously neglected aspects of East German cinema become available to
critical reassessment as well - and with it, the concepts and methodologies that have guided much of the
scholarship on postwar German film.  In this week-long seminar, we propose to focus on media historical
and institutional perspectives that until know have been neglected or ignored given the continued
preference for thematic and textual readings.  In so doing, we also want to use the continued provocation
of East German cinema to confront a number of historiographical and methodological issues in the study of
postwar German cinema, including questions of periodization, institutional continuities,
conceptions of cinema as a public sphere, and film's contribution to the audio-visual legacy of the
twentieth century.

Organizing the seminar around a series of case studies, we hope to address the following questions and issues:

* the historical continuities between Ufa and DEFA (e.g., Überläuferfilme)
* notions of film authorship and ideology (e.g., Wolfgang Staudte)
* DEFA as a production model and cultural institution (e.g., KASGs)
* the function of multimediality and intermediality (e.g., television, radio)
* actors, stars, and issues of performativity (e.g., Manfred Krug)
* the relationship between film aesthetics and technology (e.g., ORWO film)

This week-long seminar brings together a group of 20-25 scholars from various disciplines (German
studies, film studies, history, art history, social sciences, theater studies).  Our meetings will