91吃瓜

Prof. Vennemann's most recent book, The All-Round Reduced Personality--Redupers (2024), is the first monograph on Helke Sander's classic of German feminist cinema. In 1968, during her legendary 鈥淭omato Speech鈥� at a socialist convention in Frankfurt, Germany, filmmaker and feminist icon Helke Sander famously professed her refusal to continue to accept any 鈥渘atural division of labor鈥� between the genders. 鈥淲e cannot wait鈥�, she demanded, 鈥渦ntil after the revolution to solve the social oppression of women.鈥� The insistence that the socialist movement expand its limited focus on a single 鈥渕ain鈥� contradiction鈥攃apitalism and the empowerment of the working class鈥攖o include other, 鈥渕inor鈥� contradictions such as gender equality and the liberation of women, was met with fury鈥攁nd with a flurry of tomatoes. Nine years later, in her first feature film, Sander chronicles a West Berlin weekend in the life of freelance photographer and single mother Edda Chiemnyjewski. Played by Sander herself, Edda, and four of her photographer friends are tasked with producing a celebration of life in Berlin for a local artist competition. But in the women's photographs, West-Berlin life is rendered complicated and dark and, paradoxically, not even that much different from its counterpart in the East. Borrowings from essay and documentary film, Redupers, or, All Round Reduced Personality, follows the women through a divided metropolis in search of a language for their situation; reduced in political, social, and economic terms, the celebration they seek to visualize now can only be found in an imagined future.

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Published in German in 2020, Thermodynamics and the Decline of a Family discusses individual, cultural, and societal fatigue in a selection of 19th-century fiction. At the center of the book's argument is the enormous impact thermodynamic physics had on its time and culture鈥攖he discovery of thermodynamic entropy in the late 1840s brought the bourgeois dream of eternal human progress to an abrupt end. As a result, the work of many scientists, intellectuals, and artists in late-19th-century Europe is defined by the effort to propagate the importance of a hermetically enclosed social energy system while keeping the overall productivity rate steady and slowing down society鈥檚 now-certain exhaustion. Nietzsche polemically summarizes this development by claiming that 鈥渂ourgeois morality鈥� was invented as a sealant to keep the social body鈥檚 energies in check. Accordingly, some of the era鈥檚 best- known literary reflections about a tiring world consider the 鈥渋mmoral鈥�, unalienated self and specifically the female self to be the greatest threat to the energy balance of a productive modern society. Works of fiction by Gustave Flaubert, Theodor Fontane, Lew Tolstoy, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Mann and others, as the book shows, rarely convey a viable alternative to the tragic narrative which demands the sacrifice of the sinful female body for the greater good. Only later exceptions such as Kate Chopin or Edith Wharton鈥檚 novels venture to suggest a vision for the survival of the female protagonist even during times of inevitable exhaustion.

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Another recent book, Sunset Boulevard. On Filming, Building, and Dying in Los Angeles (published in German in 2012), is an essayistic inquiry into the history of Hollywood cinema and the city of Los Angeles at the intersections of architecture, film, and race politics.

Prof. Vennemann's editorial and translation work includes volumes of fiction and non-fiction by Chris Kraus, Mark Greif, Franco Berardi, Milton Rokeach, and Else Lasker-Sch眉ler.

19th-century comparative literature, film, modernism, Holocaust studies.

• Core 1: Truth
• Core 2: Poetry of the Revolution: Art & Politics of the Manifesto
• Core 2: Cinema
• Core 2: Karl Marx and the Critique of Everything Existing
• Core 3: Building Los Angeles
• Core 3: Karl Marx and the Critique of Everything Existing
• German 101B: Vienna Modernism
• German 103: A History of German Film
• German 106: German Art 1810-2010
• German 107: Trauma & Guilt: Shoah Memories
• German 108: Pop & Protest
• German 109: Heimat as Dream and Nightmare
• German 110: Modern Thought I: Karl Marx
• German 111: Leaden Times. Film after 1968
• German 112: Modern Thought II: Walter Benjamin
• German 113: Modern Thought III: Else Lasker-Sch眉ler
• German 114: DADA
• German 115: Bauhaus--Workshops of Modernity
• GRMT 102: Poetry of the Revolution: Art & Politics of the Manifesto
• GRMT 103H: Karl Marx: Capital
• GRMT 115: Ways of Writing about Ways of Seeing

BOOK PUBLICATIONS:

Helke Sander. Die allseits reduzierte Pers枚nlichkeit: Redupers (Munich: edition text & kritik, forthcoming in 2024)

Die Welt vom R眉cken des Kranichs. Thermodynamik und der Verfall einer Familie (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2020).

Sunset Boulevard. Vom Bauen, Filmen und Sterben in Los Angeles (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012).

Mara Kogoj (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2007). Translated to Spanish (Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2012) and Slovenian (Ljubljana: Matija, 2011).

Nahe Jedenew (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2005). Translated to English (New York: Melville House, 2008), French (Paris: Gallimard, 2008), Spanish (Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2008), Italian (Udine: Forum, 2009), Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Books in the Attic, 2011), Danish (Roskilde: Batzer, 2009), Polish (Wo艂owiec: Czarne, 2007), Croatian (Zagreb: Novela, 2009), Latvian (R墨ga: Dienas Gr膩mata, 2008).

SELECTED ARTICLES

"The Sound of Mucus. 60 Jahre Singen mit den von Trapps," forthcoming in Cargo. Film - Medien - Kultur 2025.

"Wirbelst眉rme, Erdrutsche und Grossbr盲nde: Eigentlich ist es Wahnsinn, in Kalifornien zu leben," in Neue Z眉rcher Zeitung, February 2025.

"Do You Wanna See Something?," in Veronika Eberhart: Garten Sprengen (Leipzig: Spector Books, 2024).

"Schl眉ssel (Dorsten)," in Cargo. Film - Medien - Kultur, September 2022, 9.

"Letter to the World. Helke Sanders Film 'Redupers' (1977) und die Ausstellung 'K眉nstlerinnen international 1877鈥�1977'," in Weimarer Beitr盲ge 70 (2024), No. 2, 239-260.

"In der N盲he sprechen. Trinh T. Minh-Ha鈥檚 Poetics of Non-Appropriation,鈥� in Merkur 75 (2021), No. 867, 19-31.

鈥淪chreien und Schweigen,鈥� in German Quarterly 94 (2021), No. 1, 29-33.

"Arbeit und Selbst im Zeitmeer," in Merkur (February 2020), No. 849.

鈥淲as man weder h枚rt noch sieht. Donald Richie und die japanische 脛sthetik,鈥� in Donald Richie, Versuch 眉ber die japanische 脛sthetik (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2018).

鈥淪easonal Associate鈥擫abor and Self in an Ocean of Time,鈥� in Heike Geissler, Seasonal Associate (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2018), 222-239.

鈥�'Now, you think you're still in the bush some damn where?' Migration und Urbanit盲t in den Filmen der L.A. Rebellion,鈥� in testcard. beitr盲ge zur popgeschichte 24/26 (2018).

鈥淒as Recht ohne Recht: Rosefeldt, Marx und Tzara, Manifeste und Heiligkeit,鈥� in Tomas Sommadossi, ed., Polytheismus der Einbildungskraft. Wechselspiele von Religion und Dichtung von der Aufkl盲rung bis zur Gegenwart (W眉rzburg: K枚nigshausen und Neumann, 2018), 99-120.

鈥淔emina Fabra,鈥� in Edit 26/73 (2017), 6-17. (on journalist Charlotte Beradt)

鈥淪wing Kids,鈥� in Jonas Engelmann, ed., Damaged Goods. 150 Eintr盲ge in die Punk-Geschichte (Mainz: Ventil 2016).

鈥�1948,鈥� in Neue Rundschau 127/1 (2016). (on visual artists Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence)

鈥�1970,鈥� in Metamorphosen 35/5 (2014). (on Israeli architect Aaron Sipol)

鈥�1966,鈥� in Edit 21/57 (2012). (on visual artist Eva Hesse)

EDITED BOOKS

Chris Kraus, Ehrgeiz, Demut, Gl眉ck. Schriften zur Kunst (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2024). (co-edited with Heike Geissler)

die horen. Zeitschrift f眉r Literatur, Kunst und Kritik. Special Edition: Literarische Orte (G枚ttingen: Wallstein, 2015). (With Jan S眉selbeck, J枚rg Schuster).

Mark Greif, Bluescreen. Essays (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).

Else Lasker-Sch眉ler, IchundIch (Frankfurt: J眉discher Verlag, 2009). (With Karl-J眉rgen Skrodzki).

TRANSLATIONS FROM ENGLISH TO GERMAN

Chris Kraus, Ehrgeiz, Demut, Gl眉ck. Schriften zur Kunst (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2024). (translated with Heike Geissler).

Chris Kraus, Aliens und Anorexie (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2020).

Milton Rokeach, Die drei Christi von Ypsilanti (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2020).

Donald Richie, Versuch 眉ber japanische 脛sthetik (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2019).

Franco Berardi, Die Seele bei der Arbeit (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2019).

Chris Kraus, I Love Dick (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2017). Paperback edition: Chris Kraus, I Love Dick (Munich: btb Verlag, 2018).

Franco Berardi, Helden (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2016).

Franco Berardi, Der Aufstand. Poesie & Finanzwesen (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2015).

Chris Kraus, Schreib mir! (Berlin: Sukultur, 2013). (With Charlotte Brombach)

Mark Greif, Bluescreen. Essays (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).

Benjamin Kunkel, Ein Schritt weiter. Die n+1-Anthologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2008).

Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Award 2023/2024 - Research

Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Award 2021/2022 - Teaching

Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Award 2020/2021 - Research