University of Arizona, Tucson – Prof. Dr. Annette Brauerhoch vom Institut für Medienwissenschaften mit dem Schwerpunkt Filmwissenschaften ist Visiting Professor am Department for German Studies der University of Arizona. In ihrem Forschungssemester verbringt Annette Brauerhoch einen Teil ihrer Zeit in dem wüstenreichen Bundestaat Arizona, um unter anderem eine mögliche Kooperation für den Studierendenaustausch anzubahnen. Passend zu der Topographie steht neben Vorlesungen und Workshops sowie dem Austausch mit Fachkollegen der Vortrag auf der Tagung „Oceans and Deserts“ im Mittelpunkt ihrer Reise: „(Ab)using the Sublime: Oceanic Desert in Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point”. Auf der Internetseite des Departments ist ein Interview mit ihr über den Aufenthalt und ihre Paderborner Schwerpunkte in Forschung und Lehre zu lesen:
Dr. Annette Brauerhoch, Visiting Film Scholar from the University of Paderborn
“I am really, really, passionate about film.”
This is not hard to believe when you hear Professor Dr. Annette Brauerhoch talk about her work with earnest gestures and obvious dedication. The department’s visiting professor this semester from the University of Paderborn, specializes in feminist film theory, working particularly with experimental films made by women in pre-unification Germany.
During her stay in Tucson, she has found an entry point for her ongoing major interest in landscape topographies in film, the desert featuring as a place of longing not only in filmic representations, but also for her personally. She describes the opportunity of physically experiencing the topic of her research as a big incentive for her study here. In the Sonoran Desert she has found a fruitful laboratory for her current projects. At the upcoming Oceans and Deserts conference (March 6-7) she will present on Antonioni’s 1970 film Zabriskie Point, which she enthusiastically summarizes as provoking an American audience with thousands of couples making love in Death Valley. The ensuing disastrous critical reception at the time of the film’s release is examined as a symptom of affected American national identity. She already has big plans for her return to Paderborn. With Dr. Barbara Kosta, the Head of the Department of German Studies, she plans to explore the possibility of a graduate exchange program between the University of Arizona and the University of Paderborn. The university’s burgeoning archive of experimental film, a project initiated by Dr. Brauerhoch, would be a focal point of the program. She imagines students working with film reels, her medium of choice, as well as a visit to the Berlinale, the world-renowned film festival hosted in Germany’s capital.
Dr. Brauerhoch will be speaking on Saturday, March 7th at the Student Union Kiva Room. Her talk, “(Ab)using the Sublime: Oceanic Desert in Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point” will be featured in the 11:00am-1:00pm panel “The Nature of Aesthetics”.
