Call for Papers: Caligari¡¯s Grandchildren: German Horror Film after 1945

For a collection of scholarly essays tentatively entitled Caligari¡¯s
Grandchildren: German Horror Film after 1945, I am looking for critical
essays that discuss individual films, directors, or topics relating to
horror cinema in postwar Germany. The anthology is aimed at exploring German
horror cinema both as a national tradition harking back to German
Expressionist filmmaking, and as a tradition in the context of a newly
emerging global cinema. As such, postwar German horror film is linked to its
Expressionist past as one of the founding traditions in the development of
the genre, and to influences from neighboring traditions, perhaps best
described as European film, as well as from Hollywood cinema. Overwhelmed by
the prominence of these two historically and culturally adjacent areas,
postwar German horror films have received little scholarly attention.
Individual essays published in journals and anthologies have addressed
aspects of the larger topic, but, unlike critical work on Italian or
Japanese horror cinema, no book has yet mapped out the contribution of
German postwar cinema to the horror genre in its full complexity and
variety. This anthology aims at filling the gap.

So far, four larger subject areas are in development:

1. German Autorenkino and Horror Film: Influences, Dialogues, Exchanges

2. The Long Shadow of Weimar: Expressionism in Postwar German Horror Film

3. New German Horror Film: Between Global Cinema and the Hollywood
Blockbuster

4. Horrific Germany: Horror Outside Genre Cinema

Possible topics for essays include, but are not limited to, Germany as a
site of horror film production (the Neubabelsberg film studios of former Ufa
fame, or German co-productions with other countries); horror comedies or
subgenres using elements of the horror film, like the serial killer film or
the thriller; low-budget and no-budget filmmaking; directors like Roland
Emmerich or Wolfgang Petersen, who started in Germany before emigrating to
the US (esp. Emmerich¡¯s horror film Joey in relationship to his American
films); directors like Nico Hoffman, who have worked in film and television
(esp. his remake of Ladislao Vajda¡¯s Es Geschah am Hellichten Tag); actors
like Goetz George, who has appeared as Nazi doctor Mengele and serial killer
Fritz Haarmann; films out of the DEFA production that might qualify as
horror films (or, if there aren¡¯t any, a discussion of this conspicuous
absence); and interviews with directors, actors, and production staff
associated with postwar German horror cinema, which may constitute a fifth
subject area in the book.

Before submitting a paper, please e-mail first a detailed proposals or
abstract by August 30, 2004, to Steffen Hantke (steffenhantke_at_hotmail.com).
The deadline for finished papers is November 30, 2004 (please submit your
essay to Steffen Hantke, Sogang University, English Department, CPO Box
1142, Seoul 100-611, Rep. of Korea, Tel. 82-2-705-8810, Fax 82-2-715-0705).

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Received on Mon Jun 07 2004 - 00:37:51 EDT