Continuities and Ruptures in Asian German Film Representation Since 1910

Please join the Department of German and German Studies for a guest lecture by Dr. Zachary Ramon Fitzpatrick, Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin-Madison on "Continuities and Ruptures in Asian German Film Representation since 1910". This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of German and German Studies and the 360 Program "Europe from the Margins." This event is open to the public. Please contact Qinna Shen (qshen@brynmawr.edu) for more information. 

Asian Germans frequently express feelings of “invisibility” in society, but the long history of German cinema tells a different story. What happens when we bring those Asian people, characters, and elements, which are seemingly unimportant, marginal, and decorative within the German film frame, into sharp focus? By summarizing stereotypical continuities, but also surprising ruptures in the portrayals of Asians from 1910 to the 2020s, this talk will uncover hidden forms of racism, reject a linear sense of representational progress, expand understandings of diasporic Asianness beyond the Anglophone sphere, and recognize Asian actors' and filmmakers' contributions to the past century of German cinema.