Entrenched Narratives, Hidden Figures: Reappraising Representations of War Across German Screen Media
Date & Location: 21-22 March 2024, Wolfson Research Exchange (University of Warwick Library), University of Warwick
Organizers: Molly Harrabin (University of Warwick) and Dr. Lawrence Alexander (University of Oxford)
In February 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the German parliament in response to and denunciation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Describing the moment as a ‘turning point’, Scholz referred to Putin’s act of aggression as a watershed moment that altered geopolitical reality and announced a volte-face in Germany’s defence and energy policies. This conference adopts the contemporary moment, which also sees the reality and spectre of armed conflict across parts of the Global South and most recently, Israel's bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks of October 7th, as an inflection point for reconsidering representations of war across a range of screen media: from narrative cinema to moving image installation; streaming to VR. It aims to understand the complexities of screening – and watching – war from critical perspectives in Film and Screen Studies that have emerged/gained in importance in recent years: including, but not limited to transnational approaches, intermedial studies, sound studies and media archaeology. We also seek to draw attention to practitioners who foreground contestations of conventional gender and sexual identity; highlight the experience of racialized and colonized subjects otherwise expunged from official historical records; and explore (post)migrant and diasporic narratives of those fleeing war. This conference thus seeks to revise established narratives and illuminate hidden figures in the representations of war across German-language screen media. The conference is kindly supported by the BAFTSS Special Interest Group Funding Scheme, the Association for German Studies Conference Grant, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Foreign Office.
Please register to attend here.
Programme
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Day 1 |
Day 2 |
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09:30-10:00: Registration & Arrival |
09:00 - 09:30: Arrival & Coffee |
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10:00-10:30: Introductory Remarks Dr. Lawrence Alexander (University of Oxford) Prof. Kate Astbury (Head of School of Modern Languages & Cultures, Warwick) Cllr. Birdi (Lord Mayor of Coventry) Molly Harrabin (University of Warwick) Dr. Ian Roberts (German Studies, Warwick) |
09:30 - 11:00: Panel 3: Documentary Remediations Lawrence Alexander (University of Oxford): 'Expanded Fields?: Remediating the Landscapes of Germany's Genocidal War Against the Herero and Nama in Forensic Architectures Inherited Testimonies (2023) and William Kentridge's Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005)' Lucy Bollington (UCL): ‘From Incarnate to Rendered Bodies: Transnational War and Figuration in Hito Steyerl’s Political Cinema’ Lauren Cuthbert (University of Aberdeen) - ‘Reinscribing tangibility into images of Vietnamese injury and death in Heynowski and Scheumann’s Am Wassergraben (1978) and Ein Vietnamflüchtling (1979)’ |
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11:00 - 11:30: Break |
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10:30-12:00: Panel 1: Trümmerfilme: Then and Now Karolina Jurdeczka (Kings College London) - ‘Christian Petzold’s Phoenix and the Spectral Return of History as Cinephilic Citation’ Paola Medina-Gonzalez (University of Warwick): 'Too soon?: Navigating Rubble Comedy in the Aftermath of the Second World War' Nancy Wilson (Queen Mary University of London) - ‘Past and Present: Reappraising the Role of Ruins in Early Postwar German Film’ |
11:30 - 12:30: Panel 4: Austrian Wartime Experiences Katya Krylova (University of Aberdeen) - ‘Keeping Austria’s Wartime History Concealed: Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life (2019)’ Johannes Vith (University of Limerick/Universität Innsbruck) - ‘Violence, War, and (Eco)Trauma in Contemporary Austrian Film’ |
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12:00 - 13:30 Lunch |
12:30 - 13:30: Lunch |
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13:30 - 14:30: Panel 2: Memory and Masculinity Eva Gijsen (KU Leuven): ‘Desertion and the Performance of Martial Masculinity: A Case Study of Robert Schwentke’s Der Hauptmann’ Lieven Raymaekers (KU Leuven) - ‘Das Boot Revisited: (Re)Interpreting Submarine Warfare on Screen’ |
13:30 - 14:30: Panel 5: Transnational Cinema & German Wartime Experience Owen Evans (Edge Hill University) - ‘“‘Do you think I feel sorry for you?”: Land of Mine (2015) as antiwar art cinema’ Dana Weber (Florida State University): ‘For the Love of History: Reenactment and Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds’ |
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14:30 - 15:00: Break |
14:30 - 15:00: Break |
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15:00-16:30: Keynote 1 Maja Figge (Independent Scholar) ‘Screening War: Colonial Erasures in German War Films’ |
15:00 - 16:30: Keynote 2 Christopher Homewood (University of Leeds) 'Women at War with the State: German Cinema and the Red Army Faction' |
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16:30 - 17:00: Drinks Reception |
16:30 - 17:00: Closing Remarks |
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17:00 - 19:00: Film Screening (FAB0.21 Cinema Room) Majubs Reise (Eva Knopf, 2013) - Register here!Link opens in a new window English subtitles provided |
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20:00: Conference Dinner |