CFP. One hundred years of Weimar cinema: the legacy of German expressionism, avant-garde and other experimental visions
Posted on 2024-10-14 19:15:37Miguel Hernández Communication Journal is pleased to announce a call for papers for its upcoming issue, dedicated to the theme "One Hundred Years of Weimar Cinema: The Legacy of German Expressionism, Avant-garde, and Other Experimental Perspectives." We invite researchers, academics, and professionals in communication, humanities, and arts to submit manuscripts addressing the importance and relevance of Weimar cinema, as well as its various cinematic perspectives, including expressionist cinema, abstract animation, and the social realism of the New Objectivity, which represent only a part of its wide range. Deadline April 1st, 2025
In search of explanations for the rise of Nazism to power, many studies on the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) were conducted. The well-known "From Caligari to Hitler" stands out, in which Siegfried Kracauer argues that interwar cinema foreshadows the psychological tendencies of the German population. For her part, Lotte H. Eisner, in "The Haunted Screen," offers a more aesthetic proposal and suggests that expressionist cinema is a reformulation of the tragic character of German culture, updating dark and mysterious themes present in Romantic fantastic literatura.
The success of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920) increased a trend in fantasy and horror cinema that had been developing for some time. Films such as Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Murnau, 1921), Der Golem (Wegener, 1920), or Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1922) are part of the cinema labeled as expressionist, which captured the attention of the period. Important historians such as Thomas Elsaesser, Vicente Sánchez-Biosca, Anton Kaes, and Malte Hagener have shown that this fantastic cinema was neither predominant nor the most popular, highlighting the multifaceted nature of the industry during this period, which also included mountaineering films and abstract experimentation, among other styles.
In 1924, the Dawes Plan strengthened bidirectional ties between Hollywood and the German film industry. From the fantastic, there was a shift to the neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), led by filmmakers like Pabst and Froelich, with dramas representing the real problems of Weimar society. Working classes are the protagonists in films such as Menschen am Sonntag (Siodmark and G. Ulmer, 1930), Kameradschaft (Pabst, 1931), and Kuhle Wampe (Sudow, 1932). Additionally, the visibility of the gay community was reflected in cinema from the beginning of Weimar, with Anders als die Anderen (Oswald, 1920) being the first explicit case. The increased presence of women in big cities was also portrayed, as seen in Pabst's works or in the first film with a female homosexual theme, Mädchen in Uniform (1931), which achieved great popularity and international success.
Given the current social polarization, many aspects of Weimar society remain present. Therefore, it is relevant to pay attention to the cinema of this moment, studying its similarities with the present. Audiovisual resources present in contemporary series and cinema appeared in Weimar cinema. A period of economic and social uncertainty, which, beyond fantasy and horror productions, has always been highlighted for its tragic character[1].
Keywords:
Expressionism, Weimar, Avant-garde, New Objectivity, experimental cinema
Main Research Lines:
- Legacy and relevance of German expressionist cinema
- Themes of the uncanny such as the double and automatons in Weimar cinema
- Representations of femininity and homosexuality in Weimar cinema
- German abstract experimental cinema (Rutmann, Richter, Fischinger)
- Place and impact of popular cinema in the Weimar era (escapism, mountaineering, costume dramas, conventional dramas...)
- New Objectivity cinema and its opposition to expressionism
- Expressiveness of male, female, and diverse bodies in Weimar cinema
- Influences of expressionism in press, radio, TV, social networks, and other contemporary audiovisual communication media
Bibliography
Briff, Olaf y Gary D. Rhodes (2016) (eds.). Expressionism in the cinema. Edinburgh University Press.
Budd, Mike (1990) (ed.). The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Texts, Contexts, Histories. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Eisner, Lote H. (1996) L'Écran démoniaque. Paris: Ramsey.
Elsaesser, Thomas (2000) Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historical Imaginary. New York: Routledge.
González Requena, Jesús (2006) «Caligari, Hitler, Schreber», en Trama y Fondo nº 21, pp. 7-34, Madrid: Asociación Cultural Trama y Fondo.
Hagener, Malte (ed.) (2000) Geschlecht in Fesseln: Sexualität zwischen Aufklärung und Ausbeutung im Weimarer Kino 1918 – 1933. Múnich: Text + Kritik.
Jimeénez González, Marcos (2022). Fritz Lang y el expresionismo. Valencia: Shangrila Textos Aparte.
Kaes, Anton (ed.) (2009) Shell shock cinema: Weimar culture and the wounds of war. Princeton University Press.
Kasten, Jürgen (1990) Der expressionistische Film, Münster: MakS Publ.
Köbner, Thomas (2003) (ed.) Diesseits der “Dämonischen Leinwand": neue Perspektiven auf das späte Weimarer Kino, Múnich: Text und Kritik.
Kracauer, Sigfried (1947) From Caligari to Hitler. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Kurtz, Rudolph (2007) Expressionismus und Film, Zúrich: Chronos.
McCormick, Richard W. (1993) «From "Caligari" to Dietrich», en Signs, Vol. 18, nº 3 (Spring 1993), pp. 640-668. University of Chicago Press.
Ortiz de Urbina, Paloma (ed.) (2022) German Expressionism in the Audiovisual Culture: Myths, Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag.
Petro, Patrice (1989) Joyless Streets: Women and Melodramatic Representation in Weimar Germany, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rogowski, Christian (ed.) (2010) The many faces of Weimar cinema, New York: Camden House.
Sala, Ángel y Jordi Sánchez-Navarro (2020) (eds.). Sombras de Caligari, Barcelona: Hermenaute.
Sánchez-Biosca, Vicente (1990) Sombras de Weimar. Madrid: Verdoux.
__ (2013) Cine y Vanguardias artísticas: conflictos, encuentros, fronteras. Barcelona: Paidós.
Scheunemann, Dietrich (2003): Expressionist Film: New Perspectives. New York: Cadmen House.
Schlüpmann, Heide (1990) Unheimlichkeit des Blicks: das Drama des frühen deutschen Kinos, Basilea: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern.
Manuscripts must be original and not under consideration in other publications. Articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words in length, including references and footnotes. All manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure academic quality and relevance. Article submissions should be made using this template format and uploaded to the journal's online platform. For this, it is necessary for the author to register on the platform. Guidelines for authors:
https://revistas.innovacionumh.es/index.php/mhcj/about/submissions
We invite you to submit your research by April 1, 2025, for this special issue of MHJournal, which will be published in July 2025. For inquiries about the suitability of the proposal, please contact Marcos Jiménez González (m.jimenez@unizar.es) and Luis N. Sanguinet (ln.sanguinet@alumnos.urjc.es).
Coordinators:
Dr. Marcos Jiménez González (Aesthetics and Theory of Arts, University of Zaragoza)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9124-8244
Marcos Jiménez González holds a degree and a PhD in Philosophy, specializing in Aesthetics and Theory of Arts, focusing on Film Aesthetics, where he carries out his teaching and research work. In 2018, he published his first book Romanticism, Technique and Power in Albert Speer's Architecture (Ápeiron publishing) and the second in 2022 Fritz Lang and Expressionism (Shangrila). He has been an associate professor at Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) and a collaborator at the Distance University of Madrid (UDIMA), as well as a Margarita Salas postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salamanca (USAL), with which he conducted research stays at the Institute of Philosophy (IFS) of CSIC and at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). He is currently a professor at the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR), in the Pre-departmental Unit of Philosophy (area of Aesthetics and Theory of Arts).
Ph.D. Luis N. Saguinet (Social Sciences, Rey Juan Carlos University)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5043-0008X
Luis Nahuel Sanguinet García is a doctoral student at Rey Juan Carlos University and is working on his doctoral thesis on the symbolism of the door in German expressionist cinema, under the joint supervision of Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Torres from URJC and Prof. Dr. Malte Hagener from Phillips Universität Marburg. He holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from URJC, a Master's in Audiovisual Production and Distribution from the HDM El Submarino art school, and a Master's in Philosophical Criticism and Argumentation from the Autonomous University of Madrid. He has worked in supervising audiovisual dossiers for Observatorio del Futuro and as an illustrator for Ápeiron Ediciones. In 2016, he published his book Aesthetic Approaches to the Door with Ápeiron Estudios de Filosofía. He has collaborated with the ATAD research group (Analysis of Audiovisual Text. Theoretical and Methodological Developments) at the Complutense University of Madrid and currently collaborates with the Consolidated Research Group INECO (Innovation, Education and Communication), linked to URJC.