The transfer of Saracen arms into Frankish ownership is a leitmotif of
many chansons de geste, but one whose significance for translatio imperii has yet to be
elucidated. In this essay, I focus on the Chanson d’Aspremont, a twelfth-century epic
set in Calabria that narrates the pre-history of Durendal, Roland’s sword of Song of
Roland fam…[Read more]

Reads William of Rubruck’s mission to Asia as an instance of premodern ethnographic representation and the shape of the precolonial European ethnographic gaze upon Asia.

The artist, collector, and critic Charles Ricketts (1866–1931) has often been characterised as a reactionary voice in early-twentieth-century debates about modern art. Although he responded conservatively to modern-art developments such as those embodied by the term ‘Post-Impressionism’, his work in book design and illustration exemplifies p…[Read more]

Beginning with television’s popularization and mass availability in the 1950s, TV has extensively been employed to transport and mediate history. From the early televisual experiments of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek to more recent examples such as Quantum Leap, The X-Files and Continuum, Science Fiction television and its subgenre of A…[Read more]

This short piece on _Duck Soup_ (1933) and narrative theory is a response to Jim Phelan’s target essay “Authors, Resources, Audiences,” published in the double-issue of _Style_ (52.1 & 52.2).

Looking from a distance, as a condition of knowledge, participates within a long-standing Western tradition of power relations. This article considers the use of “distant reading” as theorized by Franco Moretti in his book by the same title and suggests that the method of literary analysis that uses such a metaphor should be aware and critical of…[Read more]

Brian Winston greift die Debatte um die Nicht-Darstellbarkeit der Gewalt des Holocausts auf und weist darauf hin, dass vor jeder moralischen Überlegung zunächst einmal die fast vollständige Abwesenheit von audiovisuellen Zeugnissen konstatiert werden muss. Wie kann der Dokumentarfilm dennoch ein Bild des Grauens zeigen? In Referenz auf den Ve…[Read more]

English title: “Transmedia Storytelling in the narrative universe of ‘Game of Thrones'” — This essay’s aim is to briefly introduce the concept of Transmedia Storytelling and to provide a showcase analysis and review of the serial TV narrative of GAME OF THRONES in order to show how a television series’ narrative universe, driven by both producers…[Read more]

Syllabus of BA seminar “Historische Entwicklung US-amerikanischer Fernsehserien von 1950 bis heute” aka. “TV or not TV? Historical Development of US American Serial Television from the 1950s up to today” held during Winter semester 2013/14 at Universität Hamburg, Germany.

Syllabus of BA seminar “Historische Entwicklung US-amerikanischer Fernsehserien von 1950 bis heute” aka. “TV or not TV? Historical Development of US American Serial Television from the 1950s up to today” held during Winter semester 2013/14 at Universität Hamburg, Germany.

Syllabus of BA seminar “Historische Entwicklung US-amerikanischer Fernsehserien von 1950 bis heute” aka. “TV or not TV? Historical Development of US American Serial Television from the 1950s up to today” held during Winter semester 2013/14 at Universität Hamburg, Germany.

Nordic Noir has, since the early-2000s, evolved into a globally-popular genre that now easily transcends media-specific boundaries. Television has always been at the forefront of that development: Scandinavian TV productions either turned literary successes into distinct and easily-recognizable television scripts, or developed independent shows…[Read more]

The silhouetted cutouts in Kara Walker’s Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart are fine with being seen but care little for the actual presence of the viewer. They’re kissing and sucking, fucking and birthing, playing and pillorying all without shame or service to the…[Read more]

Gregory Crewdson’s cinematic, tableaux photographs often depict an anonymous, banal, and tension-filled life in suburban and rural communities. Working as a self-described American realist and strongly influenced by a tradition of American vernacular artists, including work by Arbus, Eggleson, Friedlander, and Hopper, Crewdson actively seeks to c…[Read more]

Gregory Crewdson’s cinematic, tableaux photographs often depict an anonymous, banal, and tension-filled life in suburban and rural communities. Working as a self-described American realist and strongly influenced by a tradition of American vernacular artists, including work by Arbus, Eggleson, Friedlander, and Hopper, Crewdson actively seeks to c…[Read more]

A review of Andreas Huyssen’s “Miniature Metropolis: Literature in an Age of Photography and Film” (2015)

A review of Andreas Huyssen’s “Miniature Metropolis: Literature in an Age of Photography and Film” (2015)