Angelica Fenner

Associate Professor of German and Cinema Studies

Contact info

angelica.fenner@utoronto.ca

Office
University of Toronto
Odette Hall 325
50 St. Joseph Street
Toronto, ON M5S 3L5

Innis College, Room 325
2 Sussex Avenue
Toronto, ON M5S 1J5

Secretary: 416-926-2321

Office Hours

Mondays 130-3:30pm, Thursdays 2-4pm

Classes 2021-22

Background

Ph.D. University of Minnesota

Teaching Interests
  • German Film Cultures
  • Transnational and Diasporic Cultural Production
  • History & Theory of Documentary/Non-Fiction Film
  • Weimar Culture
  • Race & Representation
  • World Cinema
  • Film Music/Film Sound
  • Film Theory
  • Globalization Theory
  • Theories of Affect, Material Culture, and the Posthuman
Current Research Interests
  • Animal Studies, New Materialism, and the Nonhuman Turn in Environmental Studies
  • The thematics of migration in European cinemas, with particular attention to how spatial, social, and psychical displacement assume narrative form.
  • Autobiographical Non-Fiction Film in Contemporary Germany
  • Women's Authorship in Contemporary German Cinema

Monographs

Race Under Reconstruction in German Cinema: Robert Stemmle's Toxi. University of Toronto Press, 2011. 284 pp.

  • Finalist, Theatre Library Association Award 2012
  • Author Footnotes at University of Toronto Press Website
  • The DVD, Robert Stemmle's Toxi (1952) is now available for purchase from the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. 'Extras' include an audio-commentary read by Angelica Fenner and Tobias Nagl.

Co-Edited Anthologies

Guest Editor

  • Special Issue: The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice. Guest editors, Angelica Fenner and Barbara Mennel. Feminist German Studies 30.1 (2022)
  • Special Issue: Rethinking Gender and German Cinema: Women’s Film Authorship in Neoliberal Times. Hester Baer and Angelica Fenner. Camera Obscura 99 (2018)
  • Special Issue: Contemporary (Re)Mediations of Race and Ethnicity in German Visual Cultures. Co-edited with Uli Linke. Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration, and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World (UC Berkeley), 9.2 (December 2014).

Book Chapters and Articles in Refereed Journals

  • "Das Antlitz dem Offenen Zugewandt: Posthuman(istisch)e Weltenbildung in Mein Lehrer, der Krake."  Nach dem Film, 21 (2023).
  • “Introduction: The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice.” Co-authored with Barbara Mennel.Feminist German Studies30.1 (2022): 1-26. Special Issue: The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice.
  • “Creating Emotion with Space in Nanouk Leopold’s Brownian Movement.” In Ecologies of Gender: Contemporary Nature Relations and the Nonhuman Turn, edited Sabine Nessel and Susanne Lettow, 147-167. NY: Routledge, 2022.
  • “Facing Life in the Open: The Posthumanist Worldmaking of My Octopus Teacher.” In The Face on Film: New Approaches, ed. Alice Maurice,150-164. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.
  • “Introduction: Revisiting Feminism and German Cinema.”Co-authored with Hester Baer. Special Issue: Revisiting Feminism and German Cinema: Women’s Film Authorship in Neoliberal Times. Camera Obscura 99 (2018): 1-19.
  • “Rising in the East/Sett(l)ing in the West: Tibetan Buddhism in Contemporary Documentary.” In The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film, eds. Alex Juhasz and Alisa Lebow, 341-365. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
  • "The Redistribution of the Sensible in Thomas Arslan’s From Afar.” In European Visions: Small Cinemas in Transition, eds. Janelle Blankenship and Tobias Nagl, 367-388. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2015.
  • “Introduction: Cultivating Peripheral Vision.” Co-authored with Uli Like. Special Issue: “Contemporary (Re)Mediations of Race and Ethnicity in German Visual Cultures.” Angelica Fenner and Uli LInke, Guest Editors. Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration, and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World (UC Berkeley), 9.2 (December 2014).
  • “Whither Autobiography? The Difficulties of Saying ‘I’ in the German Context.” Co-authored with Robin Curtis. In The Autobiographical Turn in German Documentary and Experimental Film, ed. Robin Curtis & Angelica Fenner, 1-34. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014.
  • “Clearing Out Family History in Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse.” Co-authored with Waltraud Maierhofer. In The Autobiographical Turn in Contemporary German Documentary and Experimental Film, edited by Robin Curtis and Angelica Fenner 210-31. Rochester, NY: Camden, 2014.
  • “The Gen(t)rification of Heimat: Framing Hamburg’s Creative Class in Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen.” In The Place of Politics in German, edited by Martin Blumenthal-Barby, 243-268. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2014.
  • “Roots and Routes of the Diasporic Documentarian: A Psychogeography of Fatih Akin’s Wir haben vergessen zürück zu kehren.” In Turkish-German Cinema in the New Millenium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens, eds. Sabine Hake and Barbara Mennell, 59-71. New York: Berghahn Press, 2012.
  • "Jennifer Fox's Transcultural Talking Cure: Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman." In The Cinema of Me: Global First Person Documentary, ed. Alisa Lebow. 119-141. London: Wallflower Press, 2012. [Reprint]
  • "Cinematic Discourses of Race and Reconstruction in Transnational Perspective." In From Black to Schwarz: Cultural Crossovers between African America and Germany, eds. Maria Diedrich & Jürgen Heinrichs, 227-244. Münter: LIT Verlag, 2010.
  • "Jennifer Fox's Transnational Talking Cure Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman." Journal of Feminist Media Studies 9.4 (2009): 427-445.
  • "Aural Topographies of Migration in Yamina Benguigui's Inch'Allah dimanche." Camera Obscura 66 (2007).
  • "The Reterritorialization of Enjoyment in the Adenauer Era." In Framing the Fifties: Cinema in a Divided Germany, eds. John Davidson & Sabine Hake, 166-179. NY: Berghahn, 2007.
  • "Repetition Trauma and the Tyrannies of Genre in Frieder Schlaich'sOtomo ." In Fascism and Neo-Fascism: Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe, eds. Angelica Fenner & Eric Weitz, 259-278. NY: Palgrave, 2004.
  • "Traversing the Representational Politics of Migration in Xavier Koller's Journey of Hope ." In Moving Pictures, Traveling Identities: Exile, Migration, Border Crossing in Cinema, ed. Eva Rueschmann, 18-38. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2003.
  • "Turkish Cinema in the New Europe: Visualizing Ethnic Conflict in Sinan Çetin's Berlin in Berlin. Camera Obscura 44 (2001): 105-149.
  • "Theorizing the Internet: Scholarly Collaboration, Authorial Identity, and the Bounds of Listserver Culture." In After Postmodernism: Austrian Literature and Film in Transition, ed. Willy Riemer, 348-361. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2001.
  • "Versuch eines interkulturellen Dialogs: Mehrstimmigkeit als Erzählstrategie in Helma Sander-Brahms' Shirin's Hochzeit ." Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief 49 (Dezember 1996): 25-29.

Filmmaker Interviews

  • "Feminist Filmmaking Before Feminism: Interview with Ula Stöckl.” Co-authored with Hester Baer. Feminist German Studies 30.1 (2022): 54-72. Special Issue on The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice.
  • “Refracting the Gaze: Ines Johnson-Spain on Becoming Black.” Feminist German Studies 30.1 (2022): 118-140. Special Issue on The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice.
  • "On Mobilizing for Gender Equity and Diversity in the German Film Industry: A Conversation with Yvonne de Andres, Pro Quote Film."MAI: Journal of Feminism and Visual Culture 8 (2022)
  • “Reframing Diversity for German Screens: Sheri Hagen in Conversation.”MAI: Journal of Feminism and Visual Culture 5 (2020)
  • “Representation Matters: Tatjana Turankyj on Women’s Filmmaking and the Pro Quota Film Movement.” Camera Obscura 99 (2018): 129-145. Special Issue: Revisiting Feminism and German Cinema: Women’s Film Authorship in Neoliberal Times,” eds Hester Baer and Angelica Fenner.
  • “If People Want to Oppress You, They Make You Say ‘I’: Hito Steyerl in Conversation.” In The Autobiographical Turn in Germanophone Documentary and Experimental Video, edited by Robin Curtis and Angelica Fenner, 37-51. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014.
  • "The Hybrid Approach: An Interview with the Filmmaker Branwen Okpako." Women in German Yearbook 28 (2012): 113-137.
  • "The Dialogical Documentary: Jennifer Fox on Finding a New Film Language." CineAction 77 (May 2009): 25-33.
  • "Seyhan Derin: 'She has her own way of asserting herself.'" Women in German Yearbook 21 (2005): 43-61.

Festival Reports

Zones of Conflict: Feminist Activism and Women’s Filmmaking in Transformative Times.” Co-authored with Hester Baer. MAI: Journal of Feminist and Visual Culture October 2023

Book Reviews

  • Hester Baer, German Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) in German Quarterly 95.3 (2022): 343-345.
  • Olivia Landry, Movement and Performance in Berlin School Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2018) in Discourse 44.1 (2022): 93-96.
  • Gunda Werner Institute/Heinrich Böll Foundation, Reach Everyone on the Planet: Kimberlé Crenshaw and Intersectionality (Berlin: Rucksal, 2019) in Feminist German Studies 36.2 (2020): 115-117.
  • Nora Alter and Timothy Corrigan, Essays on the Essay Film (Columbia University Press, 2017) in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 43.2 (2019).
  • Eric Rentschler. The Use and Abuse of Cinema: German Legacies from the Weimar Era to the Present. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 55.1 (2019): 81-82.
  • Sara Lennox, ed. Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016) in The Germanic Review 93.4 (2018).
  • Marion Kraft, ed. Kinder der Befreiung: Transatlantische Erfahrungen und Perspektiven Schwarzer Deutscher der Nachkriegsgeneration (Berlin: Unrast, 2015) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies53.1 (2017): 93-92.
  • Marco Abel, The Countercinema of the Berlin School(Rochester,NY: Camden, 2012) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 52.3 (2016): 346-348.
  • Monika Albrecht. “Europa ist nicht die Welt.” Postkolonialismus in Literatur und Geschichte der westdeutschen Nachkriegszeit (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2008) in Gegenwartsliteratur 13 (2014): 347.
  • Eli Goldblatt, Coming Home: A Literacy Autobiography (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 2012) in International Journal of Communication 8 (2014): 2-10.
  • Tina Campt. Image Matters: Archive, Photography, and the African Diaspora in Europe. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012) in Journal of Family History 38.3 (July 2013): 365-66.
  • Matthias Frey. Postwall German Cinema: History, Film History, and Cinephilia (NY: Berghahn, 2013) and Gabrielle Mueller and James Skidmore, eds. Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria (Waterloo, ON: Wilfried Laurier, 2012) in Seminar 50.4 (November 2014): 511-515.
  • Tobias Nagl. Die unheimliche Maschine: Rasse und Representation im Weimarer Kino. (München: Edition Text+Kritik, 2009) in Film Blatt 15.43 (Fall 2010)
  • Christine Haase. When Heimat Meets Hollywood: German Filmmakers and America, 1985-2005 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007) in German Studies Review 33.3 (October 2010): 706-7.
  • Heide Fehrenbach. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) German Studies Review 31.1 (February 2008): 178-79.
  • Nora Alter & Lutz Köpnick, eds. Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of Modern German Culture (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004) in German Studies Review 30.1 (February 2007): 235.
  • Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis, Valerie Raoul, eds. Women Filmmakers Refocusing (NY: Routledge, 2003) in Jump Cut 49 (Spring 2007)
  • Caryl Flinn. The New German Cinema: Music, History, and the Matter of Style (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) in Journal of Film Music 1.4 (Winter 2006).
  • Ian Balfour & Atom Egoyan, eds. Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film. (Boston: MIT Press, 2004) in Journal of Popular Film & Television 34.2 (June 2006): 95-96.
  • Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter, and Deniz Göktürk, eds., The German Cinema Book (London: BFI, 2002) in Film-Philosophy, 8.7 (February 2004).
  • Michael Renov. The Subject of Documentary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004) in Quarterly Review of Film & Video 25.3 (2008): 251-256.
  • Linda Schulte-Sasse. Entertaining the Third Reich: Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi Cinema (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996) in Film Quarterly 54.1 (Fall 2000): 44-46.
  • Susan Linville, Feminism, Film, Fascism: Women’s Auto/Biographical Film in Postwar Germany (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998) in Women in German Newsletter 90 (Spring 2003): 16-18.
  • Thomas Elsaesser, Ed. The BFI Companion of German Cinema (NY: BFI, 1999) in German Studies Review: 384-85.

Review Essays

  • Matthias Frey. Postwall German Cinema: History, Film History, and Cinephilia (NY: Berghahn, 2013) and Gabrielle Mueller and James Skidmore, eds. Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria (Waterloo, ON: Wilfried Laurier, 2012) in Seminar 50.4 (November 2014): 511-515.
  • Michael Renov. The Subject of Documentary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004) in Quarterly Review of Film & Video 25.3 (2008): 251-256.
  • Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis, Valerie Raoul, eds. Women Filmmakers Refocusing (NY: Routledge, 2003) in Jump Cut 49 (Spring 2007).
  • Caryl Flinn. The New German Cinema: Music, History, and the Matter of Style (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) in Journal of Film Music 1.4 (Winter 2006).
  • Linda Schulte-Sasse. Entertaining the Third Reich: Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi Cinema (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996) in Film Quarterly 54.1 (Fall 2000): 44-46.

Recent Book Reviews

  • Hester Baer, German Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) in German Quarterly 95.3 (2022): 343-345.
  • Olivia Landry, Movement and Performance in Berlin School Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2018) in Discourse 44.1 (2022): 93-96.
  • Gunda Werner Institute/Heinrich Böll Foundation, Reach Everyone on the Planet: Kimberlé Crenshaw and Intersectionality (Berlin: Rucksal, 2019) in Feminist German Studies 36.2 (2020): 115-117.
  • Nora Alter and Timothy Corrigan, Essays on the Essay Film (Columbia University Press, 2017) in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 43.2 (2019).
  • Eric Rentschler. The Use and Abuse of Cinema: German Legacies from the Weimar Era to the Present. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 55.1 (2019): 81-82.
  • Sara Lennox, ed. Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016) in The Germanic Review 93.4 (2018).
  • Marion Kraft, ed. Kinder der Befreiung: Transatlantische Erfahrungen und Perspektiven Schwarzer Deutscher der Nachkriegsgeneration (Berlin: Unrast, 2015) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies53.1 (2017): 93-92.
  • Marco Abel, The Countercinema of the Berlin School(Rochester,NY: Camden, 2012) in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 52.3 (2016): 346-348.
  • Monika Albrecht. “Europa ist nicht die Welt.” Postkolonialismus in Literatur und Geschichte der westdeutschen Nachkriegszeit (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2008) in Gegenwartsliteratur 13 (2014): 347.
  • Eli Goldblatt, Coming Home: A Literacy Autobiography (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 2012) in International Journal of Communication 8 (2014): 2-10.
  • Tina Campt. Image Matters: Archive, Photography, and the African Diaspora in Europe. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012) in Journal of Family History 38.3 (July 2013): 365-66.
  • Tobias Nagl. Die unheimliche Maschine: Rasse und Representation im Weimarer Kino. (München: Edition Text+Kritik, 2009) in Film Blatt 15.43 (Fall 2010)
  • Christine Haase. When Heimat Meets Hollywood: German Filmmakers and America, 1985-2005 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007) in German Studies Review 33.3 (October 2010): 706-7.
  • Heide Fehrenbach. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) German Studies Review 31.1 (February 2008): 178-79.
  • Nora Alter & Lutz Köpnick, eds. Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of Modern German Culture (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004) in German Studies Review 30.1 (February 2007): 235.
  • Ian Balfour & Atom Egoyan, eds. Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film. (Boston: MIT Press, 2004) in Journal of Popular Film & Television 34.2 (June 2006): 95-96.
  • Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter, and Deniz Göktürk, eds., The German Cinema Book (London: BFI, 2002) in Film-Philosophy, 8.7 (February 2004) www.film-philosophy.com.
  • Susan Linville, Feminism, Film, Fascism: Women's Auto/Biographical Film in Postwar Germany (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998) in Women in German Newsletter 90 (Spring 2003): 16-18.
  • Thomas Elsaesser, Ed. The BFI Companion of German Cinema (NY: BFI, 1999) in German Studies Review: 384-85.