Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Keyword
-
- Film (2)
- Actress (1)
- Art history (1)
- Babylon Berlin (1)
- Der träumende Mund (1)
-
- Digital history (1)
- Elisabeth Bergner (1)
- Ethnic/racial body aesthetics (1)
- Gender (1)
- German Jews (1)
- German cinema (1)
- German-Jewish Studies (1)
- Germany (1)
- Jewess (1)
- Jewish (1)
- Jewish identity (1)
- Jewish talent (1)
- Jews (1)
- Judaism (1)
- Media (1)
- Ofer Ashkenazi (1)
- Photography (1)
- Photojournalism (1)
- Political figures (1)
- Racialized minorities (1)
- Sexuality (1)
- Silent film (1)
- Suicide (1)
- Visual culture (1)
- Weimar Germany (1)
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Film and Media Studies
Digital German-Jewish Futures: Experiential Learning, Activism, And Entertainment., Kerry Wallach
Digital German-Jewish Futures: Experiential Learning, Activism, And Entertainment., Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
The future of the German-Jewish past is, in a word, digital, and not only in the sense of digital humanities or digital history. Future generations of scholars, students, and the general public will engage with the past online in the same ways—and for many of the same reasons—that they engage with everything else. There needs to be something redeeming, enjoyable, or at least memorable about studying history for people to feel that it is worthwhile. For many, the act of learning about the past serves as a kind of virtual travel, even an escape, to another time and place. Learning …
The Jewish Vamp Of Berlin: Actress Maria Orska, Typecasting, And Jewish Women, Kerry Wallach
The Jewish Vamp Of Berlin: Actress Maria Orska, Typecasting, And Jewish Women, Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
“Maria Orska, she is simply the actual embodiment of the human beast.... here, again, she is the man-beguiling Lulu, so vivid in her performance that one can almost hear her words.” With these lines in his review of Die Bestie im Menschen (1920/21), critic Fritz Olimsky describes Orska as she was widely regarded: a femme fatale Lulu or vamp type known for her tragic, expressive performances, who was often cast in psychologically complex roles involving dramatic love affairs. Orska, like her Hollywood contemporary Theda Bara, rarely moved beyond her reputation for playing this type of character. In addition to exploring …
Visual Weimar: The Iconography Of Social And Political Identities, Kerry Wallach
Visual Weimar: The Iconography Of Social And Political Identities, Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
In the Weimar Republic, images were perceived to be as unreliable as they were powerful. They helped create and codify difference while simultaneously blurring lines within the categories of gender and race. Visual culture provided a wild playground for discourses about gender presentation and sexuality that encompassed veterans, athletes, criminals, the New Woman, and androgynous figures. Despite the growing prominence of images in race science, it was widely held that images could not be trusted to convey accurate information about race. The propagandistic use of images for political purposes had the potential to be equally ambiguous. It was ultimately up …
Escape Artistry: Elisabeth Bergner And Jewish Disappearance In Der Träumende Mund (Czinner, 1932), Kerry Wallach
Escape Artistry: Elisabeth Bergner And Jewish Disappearance In Der Träumende Mund (Czinner, 1932), Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
The late Weimar film Der träumende Mund culminates in the apparent but unconfirmed suicide of its female protagonist, played by Elisabeth Bergner. Bergner, whose background contributed to the film’s Jewish reception, and who later claimed to have written the film’s screenplay, left Germany and went into exile with director Paul Czinner in 1932. This film and the circumstances of its production and premiere link tragic modes of self-erasure, including the suicides of both many women and many German Jews, to notions of escape, emigration, and reemergence. Its success among Jewish spectators points to its enduring and international appeal.
On Ashkenazi’S Weimar Film And Modern Jewish Identity, Kerry Wallach
On Ashkenazi’S Weimar Film And Modern Jewish Identity, Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
Every scholar of modern Jewish history is familiar with the poet Judah Leib Gordon’s 1862 exhortation to European Jewry: “Be a man in the street and a Jew at home” (as quoted in Ashkenazi, xv, 48). This motto takes on new relevance in the work of historian Ofer Ashkenazi, for whom public and private behaviors play out in the spatial terms of Weimar cinematic representation. Within the world of the street, Jews display only authentic bourgeois mannerisms and appearances; in private, the masquerade ceases to be necessary. According to Ashkenazi, we see this duality reflected in films made by Jewish …
Recognition For The ‘Beautiful Jewess’: Beauty Queens Crowned By Modern Jewish Print Media, Kerry Wallach
Recognition For The ‘Beautiful Jewess’: Beauty Queens Crowned By Modern Jewish Print Media, Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
This chapter demonstrates how women’s bodies were appropriated (in times of adversity) to promote Jewishness and Jewish ethnic/racial body aesthetics in a variety of locations, including Europe (Germany, Poland, Hungary), Tel Aviv, Argentina, and the United States.