Description
Book SynopsisSituated at the intersection of film studies, the history of science and medicine, and the history of modern Germany, Homo Cinematicus: Science, Motion Pictures, and the Making of Modern Germany connects the emergence of cinema as a social institution to an inquiry into the history of knowledge production in the human sciences.
Trade Review"
Homo Cinematicus offers brilliant insights into the emergence of a specific form of German modernity through the lens of nonfiction film. Drawing on archival sources, the book shows how cinema helped shape debates about public health and social policies in the first half of the twentieth century. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the ways in which cinema fostered the pursuit of knowledge in the human sciences." * Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley *
"Among
Homo Cinematicus's many strengths is its outstanding ability to situate film in larger discursive contexts, iconographies, and social agendas, as well as its comprehensive discussion of these relationships. To reexamine this era of German cinema and the discourse around it on their own terms, and not as a prelude to the Nazi regime, is an absolutely essential task, and Killen does so brilliantly. No other book on this topic matches its scope and ambition." * Scott Curtis, Northwestern University *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations
Introduction. Human Science and Cinema in Germany After the Great War
Chapter 1. Cinema and the Visual Culture of the Human Sciences
Chapter 2. Film Reform, Mental Hygiene, and the Campaign Against "Trash," 1912-34
Chapter 3. Hypnosis, Cinema, and Censorship in Germany, 1895-1933
Chapter 4. What Is an Enlightenment Film? Cinema and Sexual Hygiene in Interwar Germany
Chapter 5. Scientific Cinema Between Enlightenment and Superstition, 1918-41
Conclusion. Science, Cinema, and the Malice of Objects
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
