Survival and Rebellion: Recovering Ula Stöckl’s Feminist Film Strategies

  • Claudia Schippert University of Central Florida

Abstract

Renewed attention to German feminist filmmaker Ula Stöckl, and her ongoing cinematic creativity, affords us insight into more than four decades of German Cinema. Moreover, such an analysis can assist us in recovering significant insights regarding gender in New German Cinema (both in terms of its production and its reception), and in establishing connections of feminist film's relevance in and across generations and national contexts. The current lack of consideration of Stöckl's work is characteristic of difficulties in studying women's film and is unfortunate, because Stöckl's work is consistently cutting edge and of remarkable cinematic quality; her work was characteristic for New German Cinema while also participating in the creation of German feminist film. Discussing prominent themes in her work at the intersections with German history, politics, and culture, I review Stöckl's work, with particular emphasis on two specific films, through the lens of contemporary discussions about memory and inter-generational feminist identity.

Author Biography

Claudia Schippert, University of Central Florida

Claudia Schippert is Assistant Professor of Humanities and Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Central Florida. She teaches courses in religious studies, interdisciplinary humanities, feminist philosophy, and gender studies. Her research interests are in the areas of American cultural studies, religion in America, feminist and queer theories, and comparative approaches to bodies and sexualities. Schippert’s research focuses on thinking about bodies: how bodies are discursively con - structed; how virtual reality and media affect bodies’ representations and practices; and how we can describe these great complexities in terms of gender and race in contempo - rary society. In this context, she is especially invested in strategies that enact resistant practices and point to possibilities for ethical and political interventions.

Publications include: “Sporting Heroic Bodies in a Christian Nation-at-War†in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (Fall 2003), “Turning On/To Ethics,†in Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler, (Armour and St.Ville, eds., Columbia UP, 2006), and the forthcoming articles: “Containing Uncertainty: Sexual Values and Citizenship,†Journal of Homosexuality (52:1/2), “Critical Projection and Queer Performativity: SelfRevelation and Teaching/Learning Otherness,†Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (28:3), and “Can Muscles Be Queer: Reconsidering the Transgressive Hyperbuilt Body,†Journal of Gender Studies .

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to the author at cschippe@mail.ucf.edu

Published
2006-10-01
How to Cite
SCHIPPERT, Claudia. Survival and Rebellion: Recovering Ula Stöckl’s Feminist Film Strategies. Visual Culture & Gender, [S.l.], v. 1, p. 32-46, oct. 2006. ISSN 1936-1912. Available at: <http://vcg.emitto.net/index.php/vcg/article/view/6>. Date accessed: 28 apr. 2024.
Citation Formats
Issue
Vol 1 (2006)
Section
Articles