Camden House (NY) Gender and Sexuality in East German Film: Intimacy and Alienation: 17 (Screen Cultures: German Film and the Visual)

Review [B]reaks new ground . . . in its exploration of gender in East German cinema. . . . Time and space do not permit me to address all of the articles in [this] ?ne volume . . . . Suf?ce it to note that all of them are well worth reading, even (or especially) where they may spur disagreement or controversy. -- Stephen Brockmann ― MONATSHEFTE[This collection of essays] shows once again what new perspectives on the film history and audiovisual culture of the GDR can be opened by the application of feminist, queer, and postcolonial theory, by a comprehensive historical contextualization, and by looking at parallel or related developments outside the GDR. . . . [T]he editors lay out in their introduction the organizational, political, and ideological contexts of production and their effects on the representation of sex, gender, and sexuality. -- Anna Luise Kiss ― FILMBLATT[T]his is the book so many German film and DEFA researchers have been waiting for!...All [the] essays are of high academic standard and a great pleasure to read...[T]his volume is a commendable achievement and will inspire researchers well acquainted with the GDR, as well as serving as an introduction to East German film. -- Stephan Ehrig ― MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEWUltimately East German socialism posed the question of reconfiguring regimes of gender, intimacy, and labor, a question that East German filmmakers took on without supplying solutions that only life itself could provide. [This book] is an excellent contribution to the understanding of how this dialectic of happiness plays out in the film culture of the GDR. -- Hunter Bivens ― GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW Product Description The cinema of the German Democratic Republic, that is, the cinema of its state-run studio DEFA, portrayed gender and sexuality in complex and contradictory ways. In doing so, it reflected the contradictions in GDR society in respect to such questions. This is the first scholarly collection in English or German to fully address the treatment of gender and sexuality in the productions of DEFA across genres (from shorts and feature films to educational videos, television productions, and documentaries) and in light of social, political, and cultural contexts. It is also unique in its investigation of previously unresearched subjects, including films and directors that have received little scholarly attention and nonconformist representations of gender and sexual embodiments, identifications, and practices. The volume presents the work of leading scholars on the GDR and allows students and scholars to examine East German film with respect to the acceptance, rejection, or nuanced negotiation of ideas of proper male and female behavior espoused by the country's brand of socialism. Contributors: Muriel Cormican, Jennifer L. Creech, Heidi Denzel de Tirado, Kyle Frackman, Sebastian Heiduschke, Sonja E. Klocke, John Lessard, Larson Powell, Victoria I. Rizo Lenshyn, Reinhild Steingröver, Faye Stewart, Evan Torner, Henning Wrage. Kyle Frackman is Assistant Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of British Columbia. Faye Stewart is Associate Professor of German at Georgia State University. About the Author KYLE FRACKMAN is Associate Professor of German & Scandinavian Studies at the University of British Columbia.Larson Powell is Curator's Professor of Film Studies at University of Missouri, Kansas City.MURIEL CORMICAN is Professor of German at the University of West Georgia. She is the author of Women and Gender in the Works of Lou-Andreas Salomé (CH, 2009).