Dr. Lea Wohl von Haselberg
The research project “Zwischen Erinnerungskultur und Antisemitismus. Selbstverständnis und Erfahrung jüdischer Filmschaffender in der BRD” (Self-conception and experience of Jewish filmmakers in the FRG) uses exemplary working biographies of Jewish directors to examine their experience and self-conception and ask about the possibility of German-Jewish film history after 1945. Jewish experience in German film and television is described and located in its historical conditionality. The project aims to develop a personalized model of media history in order to question current paradigms of film history – namely the narrative pattern that after the Shoah there had been no more Jewish filmmaking in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the established procedures for attributing Jewishity. This actor-centered approach represents a possible approach to the research area “Jewish Film”, which is still young in German-speaking countries.
Bio
Lea Wohl von Haselberg (b. 1984) is a film and media scholar who researches and writes on German-Jewish themes and memory culture. Her research is centered at the intersection of media studies and Jewish studies. Her research focuses on the representation of Jewish themes in German discourses, Jewish film history and (audiovisual) cultures of memory.
After studying theater, film, and media studies in Frankfurt am Main, she completed her PhD in Hamburg and Haifa with a thesis on Jewish feature film characters in West German film and television. From 2017 to 2021, she worked on a BMBF-funded research project dealing with the working biographies of Jewish filmmakers in the FRG at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. Together with Johannes Praetorius-Rhein, she coordinates the DFG network German-Jewish Film History of the Federal Republic (2019-2023), has been leading the junior research group “Jewish Film – What is it?” funded by the Postdoc Network Brandenburg since 2020, and will be involved in leading the DFG project “Jewish Film Heritage” from 2022. She is an associate member of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, co-editor of the magazine Yalta. Positions on the Jewish Present and part of the program board of the Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (JFBB).
