Alraune

Alraune

Author: Hanns Heinz Ewers

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780954295363

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Roots of Evil

Roots of Evil

Author: Sarah Rayne

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-11-17

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 1847396631

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'She has a crisp and intelligent style, and a real way with tension' MO HAYDER When schoolteacher Trixie Smith turns up asking questions about legendary film actress Lucretia von Wolff, Lucy Trent is not unduly alarmed. She rather enjoys the notoriety surrounding her glamorous but infamous grandmother, whose lovers were legion, whose scandals were numerous, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood film studios in 1952. Trixie Smith has uncovered information which she believes throws new light on the Ashwood case. In particular, she wants to know more about Alraune, the illegitimate child Lucretia was alleged to have borne at the outbreak of WWII. The child whose existence is surrounded in mystery. The child who may never have existed at all. But Trixie Smith's enquiries are brought to an untimely end. Some days later, her mutilated corpse is discovered at the derelict site of the old Ashwood studios. In the ensuing murder investigation, Lucy is to discover disturbing facts about her family's poignant and often tragic history - a history which stretches from the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz - and at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Alraune.


Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic

Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic

Author: Anjeana K. Hans

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2014-09-15

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 081433895X

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The Weimar period in Germany was a time of radical change, when the traditions and social hierarchies of Imperial Germany crumbled, and a young, deeply conflicted republic emerged. Modernity brought changes that reached deep into the most personal aspects of life, including a loosening of gender roles that opened up new freedoms and opportunities to women. The screen vamps, garçonnes, and New Women in this movie-hungry society came to embody the new image of womanhood: sexually liberated, independent, and—at least to some—deeply threatening. In Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic, author Anjeana K. Hans examines largely forgotten films of Weimar cinema through the lens of their historical moment, contemporary concerns and critiques, and modern film theory to give a nuanced understanding of their significance and their complex interplay between gender, subjectivity, and cinema. Hans focuses on so-called uncanny films, in which terror lies just under the surface and the emancipated female body becomes the embodiment of a threat repressed. In six chapters she provides a detailed analysis of each film and traces how filmmakers simultaneously celebrate and punish the transgressive women that populate them. Films discussed include The Eyes of the Mummy (Die Augen der Mumie Mâ, Ernst Lubitsch, 1918), Uncanny Tales (Unheimliche Geschichten, Richard Oswald, 1919), Warning Shadows (Schatten: Eine nächtliche Halluzination, Artur Robison, 1923), The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände, Robert Wiene, 1924), A Daughter of Destiny (Alraune, Henrik Galeen,1928), and Daughter of Evil (Alraune, Richard Oswald, 1930). An introduction contextualizes Weimar cinema within its unique and volatile social setting. Hans demonstrates that Weimar Germany’s conflicting emotions, hopes, and fears played out in that most modern of media, the cinema. Scholars of film and German history will appreciate the intriguing study of Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic.


Decolonization in Germany

Decolonization in Germany

Author: Jared Poley

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9783039113309

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When Germany lost its colonial empire after the Great War, many Germans were unsure how to understand this transition. They were the first Europeans to experience complete colonial loss, an event which came as Germany also wrestled with wartime collapse and foreign occupation. In this book the author considers how Germans experienced this change from imperial power to postcolonial nation. This work examines what the loss of the colonies meant to Germans, and it analyzes how colonialist categories took on new meanings in Germany's «post-colonial» period. Poley explores a varied collection of materials that ranges from the stories of popular writer Hanns Heinz Ewers to the novels, essays, speeches, pamphlets, posters, and archival materials of nationalist groups in the occupied Rhineland to show how decolonization affected Germans. When the relationships between metropole and colony were suddenly severed, Germans were required to reassess many things: nation and empire, race and power, sexuality and gender, economics and culture.


Horror Literature through History [2 volumes]

Horror Literature through History [2 volumes]

Author: Matt Cardin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-09-21

Total Pages: 1065

ISBN-13: 1440842027

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This two-volume set offers comprehensive coverage of horror literature that spans its deep history, dominant themes, significant works, and major authors, such as Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Anne Rice, as well as lesser-known horror writers. Many of today's horror story fans—who appreciate horror through movies, television, video games, graphic novels, and other forms—probably don't realize that horror literature is not only one of the most popular types of literature but one of the oldest. People have always been mesmerized by stories that speak to their deepest fears. Horror Literature through History shows 21st-century horror fans the literary sources of their favorite entertainment and the rich intrinsic value of horror literature in its own right. Through profiles of major authors, critical analyses of important works, and overview essays focused on horror during particular periods as well as on related issues such as religion, apocalypticism, social criticism, and gender, readers will discover the fascinating early roots and evolution of horror writings as well as the reciprocal influence of horror literature and horror cinema. This unique two-volume reference set provides wide coverage that is current and compelling to modern readers—who are of course also eager consumers of entertainment. In the first section, overview essays on horror during different historical periods situate works of horror literature within the social, cultural, historical, and intellectual currents of their respective eras, creating a seamless narrative of the genre's evolution from ancient times to the present. The second section demonstrates how otherwise unrelated works of horror have influenced each other, how horror subgenres have evolved, and how a broad range of topics within horror—such as ghosts, vampires, religion, and gender roles—have been handled across time. The set also provides alphabetically arranged reference entries on authors, works, and specialized topics that enable readers to zero in on information and concepts presented in the other sections.


It Came from 1957

It Came from 1957

Author: Rob Craig

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-09-21

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1476612439

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America in the 1950s was a cauldron of contradictions. Advances in technology chafed against a grimly conservative political landscape; the military-industrial complex ceaselessly promoted the "Communist menace"; young marrieds fled crumbling cities for artificial communities known as suburbs; and the corporate cipher known as "The Organization Man" was created, along with stifling images of women. The decade, huddled under the fear of nuclear holocaust, was also dedicated to all things futuristic. Science fiction was in its salad days, in magazines and novels and in motion pictures, trying every trick in the book to lure customers back from television, including reliance on monster movies. All of these forces collided in 1957, when an astounding 57 movies of the science fiction, horror and fantasy variety were shown in the United States--a record unmatched to this day. Reflecting some of the socio-political topics of the day, several are exceptional examples of their genres. This book critically discusses each of the films.


The History of German Literature on Film

The History of German Literature on Film

Author: Christiane Schönfeld

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2023-06-15

Total Pages: 721

ISBN-13: 1628923741

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This book tells the story of German-language literature on film, beginning with pioneering motion picture adaptations of Faust in 1897 and early debates focused on high art as mass culture. It explores, analyzes and contextualizes the so-called 'golden age' of silent cinema in the 1920s, the impact of sound on adaptation practices, the abuse of literary heritage by Nazi filmmakers, and traces the role of German-language literature in exile and postwar films, across ideological boundaries in divided Germany, in New German Cinema, and in remakes and movies for cinema as well as television and streaming services in the 21st century. Having provided the narrative core to thousands of films since the late 19th century, many of German cinema's most influential masterpieces were inspired by canonical texts, popular plays, and even children's literature. Not being restricted to German adaptations, however, this book also traces the role of literature originally written in German in international film productions, which sheds light on the interrelation between cinema and key historical events. It outlines how processes of adaptation are shaped by global catastrophes and the emergence of nations, by materialist conditions, liberal economies and capitalist imperatives, political agendas, the mobility of individuals, and sometimes by the desire to create reflective surfaces and, perhaps, even art. Commercial cinema's adaptation practices have foregrounded economic interest, but numerous filmmakers throughout cinema history have turned to German-language literature not simply to entertain, but as a creative contribution to the public sphere, marking adaptation practice, at least potentially, as a form of active citizenship.


Weimar Film and Modern Jewish Identity

Weimar Film and Modern Jewish Identity

Author: O. Ashkenazi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-03-14

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1137010843

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In reading popular films of the Weimar Republic as candid commentaries on Jewish acculturation, Ofer Ashkenzi provides an alternative context for a re-evaluation of the infamous 'German-Jewish symbiosis' before the rise of Nazism, as well as a new framework for the understanding of the German 'national' film in the years leading to Hitler's regime.


Rootedness

Rootedness

Author: Christy Wampole

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-04-06

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 022631765X

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Roots are good to think with indeed most of us use them as a metaphor every day. A root can signify the hiddenness of our beginnings, or, in its bifurcating structure, the various possibilities in the life of an individual or a collective. This book looks at rootedness as a metaphor for the genealogical origins of people and their attachment to place and how this metaphor transformed so rapidly in twentieth-century Europe. Christy Wampole s case study is France, with its contradictory legacies of Enlightenment universalism, anti-Semitism, and colonialism. At one time, French nationalist rhetoric portrayed the Jews as unrooted and thus unrighteous people. After the two world wars, the root metaphor figured in the new French philosophy (notably Deleuze and Guattari). And recently, Caribbean thinkers in Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique have debated whether their roots were in Africa, France, the Caribbean, or in some pan-national network that could not be identified on a map. Walpole argues that while the metaphor was perhaps once useful in the establishment of communities and identities, that usefulness has expired. The longer we remain attached to the figure of rootedness, the more discord it sows. Giving up on the metaphor of rootedness, Wampole urges, allows us to see at last that we are in fact unbound by the land we inhabit."


Ecofeminist Science Fiction

Ecofeminist Science Fiction

Author: Douglas A. Vakoch

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1000376362

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Ecofeminist Science Fiction: International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature provides guidance in navigating some of the most pressing dangers we face today. Science fiction helps us face problems that threaten the very existence of humankind by giving us the emotional distance to see our current situation from afar, separated in our imaginations through time, space, or circumstance. Extrapolating from contemporary science, science fiction allows a critique of modern society, imagining more life-affirming alternatives. In this collection, ecocritics from five continents scrutinize science fiction for insights into the fundamental changes we need to make to survive and thrive as a species. Contributors examine ecofeminist themes in films, such as Avatar, Star Wars, and The Stepford Wives, as well as television series including Doctor Who and Westworld. Other scholars explore an internationally diverse group of both canonical and lesser-known science fiction writers including Oreet Ashery, Iraj Fazel Bakhsheshi, Liu Cixin, Louise Erdrich, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Larissa Lai, Ursula K. Le Guin, Chen Qiufan, Mary Doria Russell, Larissa Sansour, Karen Traviss, and Jeanette Winterson. Ecofeminist Science Fiction explores the origins of human-caused environmental change in the twin oppressions of women and of nature, driven by patriarchal power and ideologies. Female embodiment is examined through diverse natural and artificial forms, and queer ecologies challenge heteronormativity. The links between war and environmental destruction are analyzed, and the capitalist motivations and means for exploiting nature are critiqued through postcolonial perspectives.