Publications by Dr. Franz A. Birgel
Books
2004Straight through the Heart: Doris Dörrie, German Filmmaker and Author. Ed. Franz A. Birgel and Klaus Phillips. Lanham, MD and Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Articles
1985
Seven articles in Magill's Survey of Cinema: Foreign Films. Frank N. Magill, ed. 8 vols. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1985:
1. Andrei Rublev. Andrei Tarkovsky, dir. 1971. Co-authored by Marina Brodskaya. 116-21.
2. Deutschland im Herbst (Germany in Autumn). Alexander Kluge, Volker Schloendorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, et al., dir. 1978. 782-90. (Article has many typesetting errors.)
3. Der Kaiser von Kalifornien (The Emperor of California). Luis Trenker, dir. 1936. 971-76.
4. Fata Morgana. Werner Herzog, dir. 1971. 1047-53. (Article has typesetting errors.)
5. Jud Süß (Jew Süss). Veit Harlan, dir. 1940. 1595-02.
6. Der verlorene Sohn (The Prodigal Son). Luis Trenker, dir. 1934. 1828-32.
7. Lebenszeichen (Signs of Life). Werner Herzog, dir. 1968. 2772-80.
1998
"Wieland and Wezel: Divergent Trends within the German Enlightenment." In Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Vol. 26. Ed. Syndy M. Conger and Julie C. Hayes. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998. 139-50.
"Werner Herzog's Debt to Georg Büchner." In Annual of Film and Literature. Vol. 4 (1998): 5-13.
2000
"Luis Trenker: A Rebel in the Third Reich?" In Through a National Socialist Lens: Cinema in Nazi Germany. Ed. Robert Reimer and intro. David Bathrick. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000. 37-64.
2001
"Taboos exist to be broken: Ula Stöckl and Edgar Reitz' Geschichten vom Kübelkind." In West Virginia University Philological Papers. Vol. 48 (Special Issue: The Female Gaze in Literature and Film): 84-91.
2002
"Das doppelte Lottchen from Munich to Napa Valley." In Verba et Litterae: Explorations in Germanic Languages and German Literature. Essays in Honor of Albert L. Lloyd. Ed. Alfred Wedel and Hans-Jörg Busch. Newark: Linguatext, 2002.
2004
“Hans Schweikart’s Film Das Fräulein von Barnhelm: Lessing gets drafted into the Service of the Third Reich.” In The Many Face of Germany: Transformations in the Study of German Culture and History. Festschrift for Frank Trommler. Ed. John McCarthy et al. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Press, 2004.
“Happy Birthday! or is a private eye a type of family doctor?” In Straight through the Heart: Doris Dörrie, German Filmmaker and Author. Ed. Franz A. Birgel and Klaus Phillips. Lanham, MD and Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
2008
“East Germany's Response to Karl May." In At the Crossroads of Cultures: Essays in Honor of Leonid D. Rudnytzky, On the Occasion of His 70th Jubilee. Ed. Albert Kipa and Oleh Kupchynsky. L’viv and Philadelphia, 2008. 85-104.
2009
“Kuhle Wampe, Leftist Cinema, and the Politics of Film Censorship in Weimar Germany.” In Historical Reflections. 35, 2 (Summer 2009. Special Issue: “The Politics of French and German Cinema, 1930-1945”): 40-62.
A shortend version of this article is included in the DVD Kuhle Wampe – Censored! from the DEFA Film Library.
2014
“The Only Good Indian is a DEFA Indian: East German Variations on the Most American of All Genres.” In International Westerns: Relocating the Frontier. Ed. Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper. Lanham, MD and Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 37-62. The uncensored, original version of the article is available online here through the Trexler Library. View Article
“Foreword” to As Emotional Disarray Escalates into Mental Disorder in Michael Berg’s“Hanna-Story”: The Fictive Narrator’s Aberrant Behavior as Cause for “Misreadings” of Bernhard Schlink’s Novel “Der Vorleser” by Edward R. McDonald. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2014. i-v.
Interviews
1986
"You Can Go Home Again: An Interview with Edgar Reitz." (Regarding the film Heimat.) Film Quarterly 39.4 (Summer 1986): 2-10.
Book Reviews
1984
Timothy Corrigan. New German Cinema: The Displaced Image. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983). Reviewed in Kino: German Film 15 (Venice Issue, Summer 1984): 58.
1986
Klaus Phillips, ed. New German Filmmakers. From Oberhausen Through the 1970s. (New York: Ungar, 1984). Reviewed in German Quarterly 59.4 (Fall 1986): 686-88.
1987
Eric Rentschler, ed. German Film and Literature: Adaptations and Transformations. (New York & London: Methuen, 1986). Reviewed in German Quarterly 60.4 (Fall 1987): 697-98.
1988
Timothy Corrigan, ed. The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History. (New York & London: Methuen, 1986). Reviewed in German Quarterly 61.3 (Summer 1988): 490-92.
1991
Thomas Elsaesser. New German Cinema. A History. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989). Reviewed in Schatzkammer 17.1 (Spring 1991): 92-96.
1992
Hans Günther Pflaum. Germany on Film. Trans. Richard C. Helt and Roland Richter (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990). Reviewed in Schatzkammer 18.2 (Fall 1992): 70-72.
1998
Patrick McGilligan. Fritz Lang: the nature of the beast. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997). Reviewed in Schatzkammer 24.1-2 (1998): 71-76.
2003
Robert R. Shandley. Rubble Films: German Cinema in the Shadow
of the Third Reich (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2001). Reviewed in Film
Quarterly 56,4 (Summer 2003): 61-63.
Sabine Hake. German National Cinema (London and New York:
Routledge, 2002). Reviewed in German Quarterly 76, 2 (Spring 2003): 254-55.
2006
Randall Bytwerk. Bending Spines: the propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (East Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 2004). Reviewed in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 26.4 (October 2006): 626-28
Film Reviews
1984-85
Several reviews of German films in the Philadelphia City Paper.
2008
Westerns with a Twist: The Sons of Great Bear (dir. Josef Mach), Chingachgook (dir. Richard Groschopp), and Apaches (dir. Gottfried Kolditz). First Run Features, 2006. Forthcoming in German Studies Review.
Software
1995-97
Die Spur des roten Vogels, an interactive computer program for studying German. Developed for in-house use only.
