University of Otago

Faculty Member, German

Senior Lecturer, German Programme

About

My research focuses on the European avant-garde of the early 20th century and  the neo-avantgarde of the Sixties and Seventies. More broadly, I am interested in European Studies, especially contemporary film since 1989, food / power / meaning, and, recently, animal studies. In general, I pursue my work comparatively and my approach is interdisciplinary.

My theoretical background is in German and French theory especially as far as aesthetics is concerned (art, but also recent work in "word and image" studies). When it comes to film,  semiotics, feminisms, and critical theory constitute my framework.

My book (March 2010), entitled Antidiets of the Avant-garde: From Futurist Cooking to Eat Art  (The University of Minnesota Press), encompasses some of the above-mentioned areas from the viewpoint of incorporation and consumption.  I published and / or presented in the US, Great Britain, Turkey, Israel, and Italy on topics as varied as Cookbooks, nutritional texts, Food artists, animals in art, contemporary German and European films, Walter Benjamin, Daniel Spoerri, and Primo Levi.

I teach German Literature and Culture at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where I moved from the US in 2008.

I am happy to supervise PhD theses in European Literature and Culture, Avant-Garde Theory and Movements, European Neo-Avant-Garde Performance/Art/Poetry, Critical Theory, Contemporary European Travel Literature and Film, European Film and Film History, Animal Studies, Food Studies, Weimar Culture and Art, GDR Film and Literature, especially from the 1970s and 1980s.

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