Marco Abel's CV
University of Nebraska,
Department of English, 215 Andrews Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588
mabel2@unl.edu
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(402) 472-1850 (office)
Updated:
11/18/2009
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
-
August 2009-present: University of Nebraska: Associate
Professor of English and Film Studies, Department of English
-
August 2004-July 2009: University of Nebraska: Assistant
Professor of English and Film, Department of English
-
June 2004-August 2004: University of Nebraska: Post-Doctoral
Research Associate, Department of English
-
August 2003-May 2004: Georgia State University: Visiting
Instructor in Film, Department of Communication
-
August 1995-May 2003: The Pennsylvania State University:
Graduate Teaching Assistant/Lecturer, Department of English
- Ph.D., English, The Pennsylvania
State University, May 2003
- M.A.,
English, The Pennsylvania State University, May 1997
- B.A.,
English, Georgia State University, August 1995
- Universität
zu Köln, English and Mathematics, 1991-1992 (attended)
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Violent Affect: Literature, Cinema,
and Critique after Representation. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Paperback reprint spring 2009.

Violence: most of us would be happy
if we never had to experience it, and many are driven by the belief that
nonviolent spaces exist. In Violent Affect, however, Marco Abel starts
from a different, potentially controversial assumption: namely that violence
is all-pervasive by ontological necessity. In order to work through the
implications of this provocation, Abel turns to literary and cinematic
works such as those by Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Harron, Patricia
Highsmith, the Coen Brothers, and Robert DeNiro, contending that we do
not even know what violent images are, let alone how they work and what
they do. Countering previous studies of violent images based on representational
and, consequently, moralistic assumptions, which, Abel argues, inevitably
reinforce the very violence they critique, Violent Affect instead turns
to the concept of “affect” as a means to explain how violent
images work upon the world. Arguing for what he calls a “maso-critical” approach
to violence, Abel’s analysis attends to the affects inherent to
violent images with the goal of momentarily suspending judgment of them,
thus allowing for new, unanswered critical questions about the issue
of violence to emerge. Abel suggests that shifting from representational
understandings of violence toward an account of its affective forces
is a necessary step in developing more ethical tools to intervene in
the world—for acting upon it for the betterment of the future..
- You can purchase the book directly through
the UNP
website as well as through websites such as Amazon.com.
- For reviews of the book, see
- Wendy C. Hamblet, "A Masocritical Engagement with Marco Abel's Theory
of Violent Affect," Theory & Event 12.2 (2009).
- In
her conclusion, she writes: "Abel's masocriticism is itself a
metaphysical experience, a magic that is worked upon the subject
to move her from her sense of reality in order to teach her lessons
about violence, not accessible from within the scholarly frame
of reference. Literary and cinematic criticism will be greatly
offended by Marco Abel's new theory of masocritical engagement,
but it will also be affected. Further studies in the field of literary
and cinematic criticism will be incapable of honest progres until
they first address Abel's fundamental challenge to the founding
assumptions of their methodology."
- James R. Giles, South Atlantic Quarterly (2009)
Critical Essays
- "Intensifying Affect." Electronic
Book Review, October 2008: 11,000 words.
- "Intensifying Life: The Cinema of the 'Berlin
School'." Cineaste online
33.4 (Fall 2008): 7,800 words.
- Reprinted in
Portuguese as "Intensificando a vida: o cinema da 'Escola
de Berlim'" in Nova Cinema Independente
Alemao: Uma outra politica do olhar, ed. Cristian Borges (São
Paulo: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil 2009): 22-39. This catalogue
accompanied a retrospective of the Berlin School that took place
in São Paulo 11 February - 1 March, 2009.
- "The State of Things: More Images for a Post-Wall
Reality--The 56th Berlin Film Festival."
Senses of Cinema: An Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious and Eclectic
Discussion of Cinema 39 (April-June 2006): 8,400 words.
- "Images for a Post-Wall Reality: New German
Films at the 55th Berlin Film Festival." Senses
of Cinema: An Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious and Eclectic
Discussion of Cinema 35 (April-June 2005): 5,500 words.
- "Don
DeLillo's 'In the Ruins of the Future': Literature, Images, and the Rhetoric
of Seeing 9/11." PMLA 118.5 (October 2003): 1236-1250.
- "Speeding
Across the Rhizome: Deleuze Meets Kerouac On The Road." Modern
Fiction Studies 48.2 (Summer 2002): 227-256.
- "Judgment
is not an Exit: Toward an Affective Criticism of Violence with American
Psycho."
Angelaki 6.3 (December 2001): 137-154.
- Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism 229.
Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. New York: Thomson Gale Group, 2007: 239-253.
- "Fargo:
The Violent Production of the Masochistic Contract as a Cinematic Concept."
Critical Studies in Mass Communication 16.3 (September 1999):
308-328.
- "One Goal is Still
Lacking: The Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy on William
Faulkner's
The Sound and the Fury." South Atlantic Review 60.4 (November
1995): 35-51.
Forthcoming:
- "Imaging Germany: The (Political) Cinema of Christian Petzold." The
Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and its Politics at the Turn
of the Century. Eds. Jaimey Fisher and Brad Prager. Detroit: Wayne
State UP, 2009: 10,000 words ms.
- "Underground Film Germany in the Age of Control Societies: The 'Cologne
Group'." Quarterly Review of Film and Video 27.2 (2010): 11,800
words ms.
- "Failing to Connect: Itinerations of Desire in Oskar Roehler's Post-Romance
Films." New German Critique 109 (Winter 2010): 11,500 words
ms.
- "'A Sharpening of Our Regard': Realism, Affect, and the Redistribution
of the Sensible in Valeska Grisebach's Longing [Sehnsucht]." Paul
Cooke and Christoph Homewood, eds. German
Language Cinema in the New Millennium: Beyond the Cinema of Consensus?. London:
I.B. Taurus, 2010: 7,300 words.
- "22 January 2007: The Establishment Strikes Out Against the 'Berlin School'." A
New History of German Cinema. Eds.
Jennifer Kapczynski and Michael Richardson, eds. Rochester: Camden House,
2011: 2,000 words.
Under Review:
- "The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School." Submitted 12/08 to
a volume on "Cinema and Social Change in German and Austrian Cinema," edited
by James Skidmore and Gabriele Mueller for Wilfrid Laurier University Press
(Waterloo, Canada): 6,500 words ms.
Solicited:
- "Yearning for Genre: The Cinema of Dominik Graf." To be written
for a volume on "Genre in German Film History," ed. Jaimey Fisher.
Due 12/09: 7,500 words.
Critical Review Essays
- Review of German
Cinema since Unification. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 26.3 (2009): 229-236.
- Review of Cinema of the Low Countries by
Ernest Mathijs, ed. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 25.5 (2008): 447-453.
- Review of Trier
on von Trier by Stig Björkman. Quarterly Review of Film
and Video 25.1 (2008): 81-86.
- "Spatializing
Violence, Violating Space Towards a New Theory of Violence in Contemporary
American Fiction." A Critical Review Essay of The Spaces
of Violence by James R. Giles. South Atlantic
Review 71.3 (summer 2006): 121-132.
- Review of Prosthetic
Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture by
Alison Landsberg. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 23.4
(2006): 377-388.
- "Own
Your Lack!": New Lacanian Film Theory Encounters the Real in Contemporary
Cinema." A Critical Review Essay of Todd McGowan and Sheila Kunkel,
eds., Lacan and Contemporary Film Theory. South Atlantic
Review 71.1 (Winter 2006): 132-140.
- Review of Violence
and American Cinema by J. David Slocum, ed. Quarterly Review of Film
and Video 19.3 (July-September 2002): 271-277.
Other
Publications
- "A Cinema of Solidarity:
An Interview with Andreas Dresen." Senses
of Cinema 50
(April-June 2009): 16,000 words.
- "German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism."
Yella (dir. Christian Petzold). DVD. The Cinema Guild (2009): 3,600 words.
- "The
Cinema of Identification Gets on my Nerves: An Interview with Christian
Petzold."
Cineaste online
33.3 (Summer 2008): 12,600 words.
- Program
Notes for the "Retrospective of Contemporary
German Cinema: The 'Berlin School'," Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts
Center, Lincoln, NE, March 23 - April 5, 2007: 1,624 words.
- "Tender Speaking:
An Interview with Christoph
Hochhäusler." Senses
of Cinema 42 (January-March 2007): 11,000
words. This interview, expanded by an introductory essay, is my translation
of the original interview I published in German as
- "Das
Seltene und Kostbare." An Interview with German filmmaker Christoph
Hochhäusler. Filmtext.com (May
2006): 7,200 words.
- Review of Serial Murder
2nd edition by Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes.
Crime, Law and Social Change: An Interdisciplinary Journal 30.3 (1998/99):
292-297.
- Review of Insights
from Film into Violence and Oppression: Shattered Dreams of the Good Life
by John P. Lovell. Crime, Law and Social Change: An Interdisciplinary
Journal 29.4 (1998): 354-357.
- "Roddy Doyle."
Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists Since 1960, Second
Series 194 (1998): 107-112.
- "A New Letter by
Samuel T. Coleridge." Notes and Queries 242 (September
1997): 329-330.
ONGOING BOOK PROJECTS
The Berlin School:
Toward a Minor Cinema
- Book contracted with Camden House Press, 8/09
- Anticipated completion: late 2011
In their Own Words: The
Berlin School in Conversation
- A collection of interviews I conducted, or will conduct,
with the directors associated with the Berlin School
- Each interview will be prefaced by a brief introductory
essay on the directors
- Anticipated completion: late 2012
Post-Wall
Cinema: German Film Culture in the Shadow of Unification
Idea for a comprehensive history of German cinema since 1990
covering topics such as:
- the
RAF in Post-Wall cinema
- the impact of Turkish-German
directors
- the artistic and commercial
role played by X Filme and other production companies
- the aesthetic relationship
of Post-Wall cinema to Hollywood
- the Berliner Schule
(Berlin School)
- the Kölner
Group (the Cologne Group)
- the
aesthetic and political relationship of Post-Wall cinema to the New German
Cinema of the 1970s
- the
relationship between the old West and East as depicted in Post-Wall cinema
- the
impact of "3rd way socialism" (Gerhard Schröder's
SPD) on Germany in the Post-Wall era
As part of my research,
I've attended the Berlin film festival from 2005 to 2009 and have thus
far interviewed contemporary German directors such as Christoph Hochhäusler,
Benjamin Heisenberg, Christian Petzold, Henner Winckler, Ulrich Köhler,
Rainer Knepperges, Bernhard Marsch, Markus Mischkowski, Kai Maria Steinkühler,
Andreas Dresen, Dominik Graf, producer Florian Koerner von Gustorf, as
well as Austrian director Jessica Hausner.
CURATING

Larger image
I
have been invited to curate a Retrospective
of Contemporary German Cinema (March 23 - April 5, 2007) at the Mary
Riepma Ross Media Arts Center in Lincoln, NE. The
retrospective is
primarily going to focus on films from the so-called "Berlin
School." The
German directors Benjamin Heisenberg and Christoph Hochhäusler
attend the event. Films featured are: Aus
der Ferne (Thomas
Arslan, 2006), Gespenster (Christian
Petzold, 2005), Bungalow (Ulrich
Köhler, 2002), Hamburger
Lektionen (Romuald Karmakar, 2006), Milchwald (Christoph
Hochhäusler, 2003), Falscher
Bekenner (Christoph Hochhäusler,
2005), Marseille (Angela
Schanelec, 2004), Hotel (Jessica
Hausner, 2004), Schläfer (Benjamin
Heisenberg, 2005), Sommer
vorm Balkon (Andreas Dresen, 2005), Sehnsucht (Valeska
Grisebach, 2006), and Lucy (Henner
Winckler, 2006).
Here's
a nice essay on the event from the Omaha City Weekly.
Here's
another from the Daily Nebraskan.
Here I archived selected papers from my students
from ENG 239: German Filmmakers who, as part of the class, had to attend
the Retrospective and write essays on it.
CONFERENCE PAPERS PRESENTED
- "Yearning for Genre: The
Cinema of Domiinik Graf." Society
for Cinema & Media Studies conference,
Los Angeles, 3/2010.
- "Realism beyond Identity:
The Cinema of Thoomas Arslan." Rethinking German-Turkish Cinema
Workshop, Austin, TX, 3/2010.
- "Movement and Nation in Die
innere Sicherheit." German
Studies Association Conference, Washington DC, 10/2009.
- "Towards a New National Cinema:
Topographical Singularization of Germany in the 'Berlin School' Films."
German Studies Association Conference, St. Paul, MN, 10/2008.
- "Untimely Mappings: The
Politics of the A-Representational Realism of the 'Berlin School'." Cinema
and Social Change in Germany and Austria Conference. Waterloo,
Canada, 5/2008 .
- "Underground Film Germany: The 'Cologne Group'." Society
for Cinema & Media Studies conference. Philadelphia, 3/2008.
- "Berliner Schule Cinema:
Re-visions of Mobility in the Age of post-Wall Globalization." Popular
Culture Association/American Culture Association conference. Boston,
4/2007.
- "Imaging Germany: The (Political)
Cinema of Christian Petzold." Society
for Cinema & Media Studies conference. Chicago, 3/2007.
- "Imaging Mobility in Contemporary
German Cinema: 'The Berliner Schule'." Society
for Cinema & Media Studies conference. Vancouver, Canada, 3/2006.
- "Representation is not an
Exit: Toward an Affective Criticism of Violence in American
Psycho."
Violence, Cinema, and American Culture. St. Louis, MO, 4/2001.
- "Judgment is not an Exit:
Toward an Affective Criticism of Violence in American
Psycho."
Second Millennium Literature/Film Conference of the Literature/Film Association.
Ocean City, MD, 12/2000.
- "Hitchhike, Take Flight:
Speedily Traveling the Rhizome with Deleuze on Kerouac's Road."
Twentieth Century Literature Conference. Louisville, KY, 2/2000.
- "Maso-Criticism: Towards
a Non-Representational Encounter with Violence in Twentieth Century
American Literature and Film." Southwestern Popular Culture
Conference.
Albuquerque, NM, 2/2000.PCA/ACA
- "Speedily Traveling the Rhizome:
Kerouac's On the Road as an Aesthetic Mapping of the American Political
Landscape." Writing the Journey: A Conference on American, British
and Anglophone Travel Writers and Writing. Philadelphia, PA, 6/1999.
- "Rethinking Ethics Through
Deleuzean Suggestions for an Approach to Violent Cinema: Fargo's
Production of the Masochistic Contract as a Cinematic Concept."
24th Annual Conference on Film and Literature: Violence in Film
and Literature. Tallahassee, FL, 1/1999.
- "The Spectacular 'Etc.'
in Henry VIII, or, How to Discipline Bodies with(out) Violence."
24th Annual Conference on Film and Literature: Violence in Film
and Literature. Tallahassee, FL, 1/1999.
Invited Guest
Lectures