Evelyn Preuss

Instructor, German

Evelyn Preuss received her MPhil from Yale University in May 2021 and joined the University of Oklahoma Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics in the Fall of 2021 as an Instructor of German.

Evelyn is finishing her dissertation on East German Cinema at Yale University. Contrary to Cold War notions of the former Eastern Bloc as a streamlined society characterized by the top-down chain of command, she argues that the GDR’s hybrid institutional framework provided professional support and considerable artistic freedom in addition to distribution. Thereby the GDR fostered, rather than curtailed, alternative political discourses. Analyzing the cinema of the German Democratic Republic's DEFA studios (1946-1992), she shows how production teams could combine aspects of a highly professional studio cinema with auteurist approaches as well as a revolutionary impetus that favored interventionist aesthetics and rehearsed with the audience the attitudes, discursive strategies, and behaviors that eventually led to the 1989 revolution and the Fall of the Wall.

Evelyn's postdoctoral project extends from her doctoral thesis by analyzing the arts, in their grassroots form, as alternative platforms that can provide different forms of inclusion, build different forms of political consensus, and model different forms of social behavior, while, in their commercialized, corporate form, they may advance social stratification, homogenization, and exchangability. By relating cultural expression to political, social, and economic developments, she explores their social dimensions and their respective political effect.

Evelyn teaches German language courses in the MLLL since the fall of 2021.

Selected Publications

“Goodbye, Sonnenallee, Or How Gundermann Got Lost in the Cinema of Others,” Politics and Culture in Germany and Austria Today; Edinburgh German Yearbook 14. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021: 183-206.
This chapter investigates to what extent an increasingly globalized market place allows for the local production of meaning is. It takes as an example the biopic Gundermann, a film about East Germany's arguably most idiosyncratic intellectual, Gerhard Gundermann. In the chapter, Evelyn shows how, after fighting for funding for twelve years, the last East German director still working for mainstream German Cinema, Andreas Dresen, had to compromise his original intent and Gundermann's life, art, and politics in order to fit the film within the formulae of global cinema. https://www.academia.edu/38327790/_You_Say_You_Want_a_Revolution_East_German_Film_at_the_Crossroads_between_the_Cinemas_Celluloid_Revolt_German_Screen_Cultures_and_the_Long_1968_Edited_by_Christina_Gerhardt_and_Marco_Abel_Rochester_NY_Boydell_2019_218_236
“You Say You Want a Revolution: East German Film at the Crossroads between the Cinemas.” Celluloid Revolt: 1968 and German Cinema. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2019.
This chapter shows that East German Cinema hybridized what Western Film Theory terms First, Second, and Third Cinema. It functioned as a monopolistic studio system that professionalized the cinematic arts, while giving artists license to develop their own projects. It also subscribed to a revolutionary agenda that sought to intervene in social and political process. https://www.academia.edu/38327790/_You_Say_You_Want_a_Revolution_East_German_Film_at_the_Crossroads_between_the_Cinemas_Celluloid_Revolt_German_Screen_Cultures_and_the_Long_1968_Edited_by_Christina_Gerhardt_and_Marco_Abel_Rochester_NY_Boydell_2019_218_236
“Europe (Un)Divided: How Peace Was Won and the War Never Lost in Wim Wender's Lisbon Story (1995) and Emir Kusturica's Bila Jednom Jedna Zemlja/Underground (1995).” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 1 (2007): 47-54.
This article compares Eastern and Western perspectives on European integration through the films of Wim Wenders and Emir Kusturica, and shows how the filmmakers communicate their different understanding and experiences through their filmic aesthetics. https://www.academia.edu/17825205/_Europe_Un_Divided_How_Peace_Was_Won_and_the_War_Never_Lost_in_Wim_Wenders_Lisbon_Story_1995_and_Emir_Kusturicas_Bila_Jednom_Jedna_Zemlja_Underground_1995_Journal_of_Contemporary_European_Studies_1_2007_47_54
“To See or Not to See? Topographies of Repression in Konrad Wolf’s I Was Nineteen (1968) and The Naked Man on the Sportsground (1974).” Reviewing Space: Space and Place in European Cinema. Eds. Wendy Everett and Axel Goodbody. New York: Lang, 2005: 209-240.
This chapter reads Konrad Wolf's films--and especially their landscapes--as anamorphic picture puzzles, which reveal or hide histories, politics, and trajectories depending the (historical) perspective of the spectators. https://www.academia.edu/35309062/_To_See_or_Not_to_See_Topographies_of_Repression_in_Konrad_Wolf_s_I_Was_Nineteen_1968_and_The_Naked_Man_on_the_Sportsground_1974_Reviewing_Space_Space_and_Place_in_European_Cinema_Eds_Wendy_Everett_et_al_New_York_Lang_2005_209_240
“The Wall You Will Never Know.” Perspecta 036: The Yale Architectural Journal. Eds. Jennifer Silbert and Sidney McCleary. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005: 19-31.
This article analyzes Cold War ideology by way of the period's most notorious architecture: the Berlin Wall. Reading the Wall in terms of Film Theory, namely a projection screen, the Cold War divide emerges as a monument to (post)modernity rather an atavistic attempt to forestall it. https://www.academia.edu/17812963/_The_Wall_You_Will_Never_Know_Perspecta_036_The_Yale_Architectural_Journal_Eds_Jennifer_Silbert_and_Sidney_McCleary_Cambridge_MA_MIT_Press_2005_19_31

Education

MPhil in German Languages and Literatures. Yale University. 2021
MA in German Languages and Literatures. Yale University. 2004
MA in German Studies. University of Iowa. 1997

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