We are thrilled to announce the upcoming GSSN workshop, generously supported by the the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as part of the Promoting German Studies Project, “German Screen Studies Network (GSSN): Media, Cultures, Histories” (Dora Osborne / Paul Flaig).
Please note that all papers will be live-streamed via MS Teams. All timings are UK (GMT time). The workshop is open to all who wish to attend in person or online (and there is no charge for either in-person attendance or live-streaming).
Please register by 12.00 noon on Friday 27 May ([email protected]) and ([email protected]) if you would like to attend, so we can supply you with a MS Teams link and/or check that we have sufficent room capacity.
Documenting Socialism Workshop: East German Documentary Cinema
Workshop and Screenings at the University of St Andrews: 30 May – 1 June 2022
Organisers: Seán Allan (St Andrews) and Sebastian Heiduschke (OSU)
Monday, May 30 (Venue: Wardlaw Museum, Learning Lodge, University of St Andrews)
16.00 Seán Allan (St Andrews) and Sebastian Heiduschke (OSU): Welcome & Introduction
16.10 – 17.20 Panel 1: Documentary Auteurs
16.10 Seán Allan (St Andrews): Peter Voigt: Socialist Documentary and the Legacy of Brecht
16.30 Jennifer Creech (OSU) [on line @ 8.30 Corvallis, OR] “Sehnsüchte ohne Illusion”. Documenting Desire and Disillusionment in the Films of Helke Misselwitz und Petra Tschörtner
16.50 – 17.15 Discussion
17.20 – 18.50 Screening Paul Robeson: “I’m a Negro, I’m an American” (Kurt Tetzlaff, 1989, 86 mins) introduced by Sebastian Heiduschke (OSU)
Tuesday, May 31 (Venue: Wardlaw Museum Learning Lodge, University of St Andrews)
09.00 – 11.00 Panel 2: New Work on DEFA in Scotland
09.00 Sam Osborn (St Andrews): Queer Visibility and Community in DEFA
09.20 Carla Steinbrecher (St Andrews/Bonn) The Studio H&S’s Chile Films and its ‘Con-Texts’: Fabricating an International Socialist Public Sphere
09.40 Anna McEwan (Glasgow): The Pinnacle of Progress: Für das Glück der Frauen und der Familien and International Women’s Year in the GDR (1975)
10.00 Lauren Cuthbert (Aberdeen) ‘Watching’ photographs: Fostering solidarity through images of Vietnamese suffering in Studio H&S’s Vietnam films
10.20 – 11.00 Discussion
11.00 – 11.20 Coffee Break
11.25 – 13.25 Panel 3: Transnational Documentary
11.25 Andy Räder (Rostock): Documentary Films by and about Sorbs in East Germany 1946-1992
11.45 Martin Brady (KCL, London): Mass Murder in Cambodia under the Emblem of Hammer and Sickle: A “revolting juxtaposition” in Heynowski-Scheumann’s Cambodia Trilogy (1980-1983)
12.05 Sebastian Heiduschke (OSU): Polycentric Images of Africa in East German Documentaries
12.25 Priscilla Layne (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) [on-line = 7.25 am in Chapel Hill]: East Germany’s Anti-Racist Politics and Black Abjection in Documentary Film
12.45- 13.25 Discussion
13.30 – 14.30 Lunch break
14.30 – 15.00 Screening of A Diary for Anne Frank? (Hellwig, 1958, 18 mins)
15.05 – 15.25 Elizabeth Ward (IMLR, London): A Diary for Anne Frank? The GDR’s Nuit et Brouillard?
15.25 – 15.45 Discussion
15.45– 16.15 Coffee break
16.20 –17.50 Panel 4: Studio Systems and Networks
16.20 Matthew Bauman (Transylvania University): „Belichtetes Material türmt sich zu Riesenstößen”: Gerhard Scheumann and the Cinéma Vérité Debate in the GDR
16.40 Thomas Maulucci (University of Connecticut): The DEFA ‘Foreign Ministry Films’: Presenting the German Democratic Republic to the World, 1962-1989
17.00 Reinhild Steingröver (Eastman School of Music): Diary of the Ordinary: Reinventing the Newsreel; DEFA Kinobox, 1981-1990
17.20 – 18.05 Discussion
Wednesday 1 June (Venue: Wardlaw Museum Learning Lodge, University of St Andrews)
09.00 – 10.40 Panel 5: Documenting Alterity
09.00 Tom Smith (St Andrews): A Woman’s Work: Military Femininities, Female Masculinities and the Difficulties of Representing Women Soldiers in East Germany
09.20 Kyle Frackman (UBC): The Queer Cipher in East German Documentary
09.40 Faye Stewart (UNC Greensboro): Is There a ‘Female Gaze’?
10.00 – 10.40 Discussion
10.40 – 11.00 Coffee Break
11.00 – 12.10 Panel 6: Pasts and Presents
11.00 Helen Hughes (Surrey): The Archives Spoke Out. The Compilation Films of Andrew and Annelie Thorndike
11.20 Stephan Ehrig (Glasgow): The Socialist City and Utopian Temporality in Halle-Neustadt Documentary
11.40 Jason Doerre (Trinity College): On the Rubble of History: Searching for the German Past in a European Present in Andreas Voigt’s Ostpreußenland and Volker Koepp’s Kalte Heimat
12.00 – 12.45 Discussion
12.45 – 13.00 Closing remarks and next steps
13.00 –13.30 Snack Lunch and departure
Notes:
Unless otherwise indicated, all papers will be delivered in-person. The workshop will be in the Learning Loft in the Wardlaw Museum at the University of St Andrews.
All papers will be presented in English and both films have English sub-titles.
It is no longer compulsory to wear a mask under the prevailing Scotgov regulations, but the University encourages the wearing of masks in University buildings out of consideration/respect for those who feel uncomfortable in larger unmasked gatherings.
The University’s Corona code is here: