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This study constitutes the first comprehensive book-length film history of a century of German science-fiction cinema, from Harry Piel’s Die große Wette (1915) to the forthcoming German-American co-production Unwind (2016). The science-fiction genre both offers a unique vantage point on developments in film technology, finance, reception and social imaginaries in the German context, as well as interrogates the very notion of what a “German” film actually is. This particular study operates on an institutional definition of “science fiction” that encompasses any German-financed, German-led and/or German-language production defining itself in its press, script and development materials as “utopian,” “future fantasy” or “science fiction.” This self-descriptive approach drawn from institutional discourse permits us to define the contours of SF by way of the historical agents themselves, and avoids confirmation bias by not already presuming what will be found when the materials are situated within their own context.

COORDINATION
Prof. Dr. Chris Wahl, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF

Persons

Evan Torner (b. 1982) is an Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati and currently a guest researcher at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. He received his B.A. in German and Education with honors from Grinnell College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His dissertation “The Race-Time Continuum: Race Projection in DEFA Genre Cinema” explores East German westerns, musicals and science fiction in terms of their representation of the Global South. This research has been supported by Fulbright and DEFA Foundation grants, as well as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Grinnell College. He spent 2009-2010 in Potsdam-Babelsberg, and in 2011 translated the exhibit “Dream Factory – 100 Years of Babelsberg” at the Filmmuseum Potsdam into English. His fields of expertise include East German genre cinema, German film history, critical race theory, and science fiction.