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Susanne Kord

Professor
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Susanne Kord
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FBA

About
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About

SUSANNE KORD, formerly a Professor at Georgetown University (Washington, D. C.) and University College London, has written on many aspects of history, literary history, cinema, and reception. She has published poetry in several anthologies and journals, and offered readings in various venues, including the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.. She has received seven major awards for her writing. She lives in London.
Books

Authored Books

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Life Doesn't Just Go On: A Hybrid Memoir of Two World Wars. An archival study of  a German family's letters from both World Wars, their family photographs and stories as related by survivors. It asks how and why members of the same nuclear family--a father, a mother, a son and two daughters--responded to the Nazi era and the wars in completely different ways, and reflects on the effect of these unspoken rifts on the part of the family that survived into the post-war era. Working title. In progress

The Cabin in the Woods. [A book about Drew Goddard's 2012 film.] Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (Devil's Advocate Series), 2023.

12 Monkeys. [A book about Terry Gilliam's 1995 film.] Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (Auteur: Constellations Series), 2019. READ REVIEWS HERE

Lovable Crooks and Loathsome Jews: Antisemitism in German and Austrian Crime Writing Before the World Wars. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2018.
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​Little Horrors: How Cinema's Evil Children Play on Our Guilt. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2016. WATCH INTERVIEW ABOUT THE BOOK HERE OR READ REVIEWS HERE

Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities: Gender, Genre, and Politics. Co-authored with Elisabeth Krimmer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 (paperback 2013). Winner of a 2012 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles Award. READ A REVIEW HERE

Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009 (paperback 2013). READ REVIEWS HERE

Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines: Contemporary Screen Images of Women. Co-authored with Elisabeth Krimmer. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. READ A REVIEW HERE

Women Peasant Poets in England, Scotland and Germany: Milkmaids on Parnassus. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003. READ A REVIEW HERE

Little Detours: Letters and Plays by Luise Gottsched. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000. READ A REVIEW HERE

Sich einen Namen machen: Anonymität und weibliche Autorschaft, 1700-1900. Stuttgart:Metzler, 1996. Free download

Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen: Deutschsprachige Dramatikerinnen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Metzler,1992. Free download

Edited Books and Translations

Edited Books

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Giving People Ideas--Text and Concept: Literary Texts as Thought Experiments. A Special Double Issue of the Publications of the English Goethe Society to celebrate the 70th Birthday of Professor Martin Swales (UCL). Co-edited with Ernest Schonfield and Godela Weiss-Sussex. Maney Publishing (2011).

Macht des Weibes: Zwei historische Tragödien von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. MHRA Critical Texts vol. 4 (2005). 

Letzte Chancen: Vier Einakter von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. MHRA Critical Texts vol. 3 (2005).

Elsa Bernstein, Dämmerung/Twilight. Edition and translation, with an introduction. 2 vols. New York: MLA, 2003.

Unwrapping Goethe's Weimar: Essays in Cultural Studies and Local Knowledge. Joint Editor with Burkhard Henke and Simon Richter. Rochester: Camden House, 1999.
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Charlotte von Stein, Dramen. Gesamtausgabe. Hildesheim: Georg Olms,1998.

The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Joint Editor with Friederike Eigler. Westport, London: Greenwood Press,1997.

 

Literary Translations

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(click on title lines for further information)
 
Gabrielle Jonas, Der schlesische Schwan (drama). Translation of The Silesian Swan (2023). Unpublished.

Elsa Bernstein, Dämmerung/Twilight. Re-edition and translation, with an introduction. 2 vols. New York: MLA, 2003.

Charlotte von Stein, Rino (1776). A Play in Three Parts. Translation and Annotation. Thalia's Daughters: German Women Dramatists from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed. Susan Cocalis and Ferrell Rose (Tübingen: Francke/Narr, 1996): 305-10.

Elsa Bernstein (Ernst Rosmer), Maria Arndt. Translation and Introduction. Modern Drama by Women 1880s-1930s: An international anthology. Ed. Katherine E. Kelly (London, New York: Routledge, 1996): 80-107.

Articles
 

out-of copyright articles can be downloaded for free here
 

  1. "Pandemic Movies: What Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys Tells Us About the Future." Academia Letters (June 2021): 1-3.

  2. "The Emperor's Clothes: Napoleon as a Screen Icon." Inspiration Bonaparte? German Culture and Napoleonic Occupation. Ed. Sean Allan and Jeffrey High. Columbia: Camden House, 2021. 303-24.

  3. "The Peter Pan Syndrome: Murder as Child’s Play in Four 1970s Films." Shocking Cinema of the Seventies. Ed. Xavier Mendik and Julian Petley. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. 245-67.  

  4. 'Berlin 1927: Intersections with Albert Friedländer.' European Judaism 53/2 (Autumn 2020): 20-33.

  5. "Gangs and Guilt: Towards a New Theory of Horror Film." Cultural Dynamics" 28/1 (March 2016): 69-83 (read or download it here).

  6. "From the American Myth to the American Dream: Alternative Worlds in Recent Hollywood Westerns." Alternative Worlds: Blue-sky thinking since 1900. Ed. Ricarda Vidal and Ingo Cornils. Berne: Peter Lang, 2015. 213-34.

  7. "Work and Education: The Case of Laboring Women Poets in England, Scotland, and Germany." A Cultural History of Women in the Age of Enlightenment. Ed. Ellen Pollak. Oxford: Berg, 2012. 143-66, 235-40.

  8. "Why Executions Were a Gendered Affair." Open Democracy 50.50: Inclusive Democracy (25 September 2012).

  9. "Böses Blut: Pubertierende Mädchen und sexuelle Neugier in archetypischen Geschichten." rebellisch verzweifelt infam: Das böse Mädchen als ästhetische Figur. Hg. Renate Möhrmann. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2012. 85-101.

  10. "Co-opting Mother: America's Dads." Open Democracy 50.50: Inclusive Democracy (9 August 2012). Selected as a 'Highlight of 2012'-article by the Editor.

  11. "The Genius of Involuntary Humour: The Kempner-Effect and the Rules of Fiction." Oxford German Studies 41.2 (August 2012): 162-80.

  12. "From Sentimentality to Sexuality: English Werther-Stories, the French Revolution, and German Vampires." (Re-)Writing the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France. Ed. Maike Oergel. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012. 25-43.

  13. "The Rule of Law and the Role of Literature: Public Debates on Husband-Killers and Human Rights (1788-1845)." Forum for Modern Language Studies 48 (January 2012): 59-73. Online version (pdf download) published November 2011. Winner of the 2011 Forum-Prize.

  14. "Hexen und andere Frauen: Der böse Blick im Zeitalter der Aufklärung." Frauen und andere Hexen. Ed. Margrid Bircken and Heide Hampel. Neubrandenburg: Steffen Verlag, 2011. 25-43, 187-93.

  15. "Weibermacht und Geschlechtslosigkeit: Königinnen bei Schiller und seinen 'Epigoninnen'." Revista de Filologia Alemana 19 (2011): 115-36. 

  16. "Donne potenti, donne assessuate: Regine nei drammi di Schiller e delle sue 'epigoni'." Auguri Schiller! Atti del convegno perugino in occasione del 250 anniversario della nascita di Friedrich Schiller. Ed. Hermann Dorowin and Uta Treder. Perugia: Morlacchi Editore, 2011. 191-221.

  17. "Die anglo-amerikanische Germanistik in der Krise: Ein Aufruf an Lehrende und  Leseratten." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbandes 57/3 (2010): 314-25.

  18. "Etikette oder Theater? Kindsmörderinnen auf dem Schafott." Geschlechter-Spiel-Räume: Frauen und Drama. Ed. Gaby Pailer and Franziska Schößler. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. 297-312.

  19. "El eterno femenino nos atrae hacia abajo: Faust, Fausta y Faustina entre el pacto con el demonio y el mordisco del vampiro."Fausto en Europa. Visiones de los demonios y el humor faustico. Ed. Arno Gimber and Isabel Hernandez. Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2009. 395-412.

  20. "Bad Blood: The Cost of Sexual Curiosity in Archetypal Tales." Oxford German Studies 38.2 (2009): 203-17. 

  21. "Der Fall Wächtler: Die Hamburger Flugblattliteratur zur Folter (1788) und die Lust am Lesen." Zeitschrift für Germanistik(February 2009): 346-60.

  22. "Et in Germania Ego... From Fairy Tale to Opera, from West to East: A German Journey." Sophia Magazine 2 ( 2009): 16-19.

  23. "Unmöglichkeiten: Vater-Tochter-Dramen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert." Familie und Identität in der deutschen Literatur. Ed. Thomas Martinec and Claudia Nitschke. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008. 105-25.

  24. "Der Autor ist tot, das Werk begraben: Anna Louisa Karsch (1722-1791) und Sophie Mereau (1770-1806) zwischen Autonomieästhetik und Frauenliteratur." Sophie Mereau: Verbindungslinien in Zeit und Raum. Ed. Katharina von Hammerstein and Katrin Horn. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2008. 31-59.

  25. "Ancient Fears and the New Order: Witch Beliefs and Physiognomy in the Age of Reason." Ver/Ordnungen: Re-Thinking the German Enlightenment. A Special Issue of German Life and Letters in Honour of David Hill. Ed. Susanne Kord and Ruth Whittle. 61.1 (January 2008): 61-78.

  26. "Introduction." Ver/Ordnungen: Re-Thinking the German Enlightenment. A Special Issue of German Life and Letters in Honour of David Hill. Ed. Susanne Kord and Ruth Whittle. 61.1 (January 2008): 1-6.

  27. "Writing for the Drawer: Women Writers in the Works of Women Writers." Frauen in der literarischen Öffentlichkeit, 1780-1918. Ed. Caroline Bland and Elisa Müller-Adams. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2007. 283-304.

  28. "Defining Cultural Exchange: Of Gender, the Power of Definition, and the Long Road Home." Edinburgh German Yearbook, vol. 1 (2007): 7-26.

  29. "Publish and Perish: Women Writers Anticipate Posterity." Publications of the English Goethe Society 76/2 (2007): 119-34.

  30. "The Pre-Colonial Imagination: Race and Revolution in Literature of the Napoleonic Period." Un-Civilising Processes? Excess and Transgression in German Society and Culture. Perspectives debating with Norbert Elias. Ed. Mary Fulbrook. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 85-115.

  31. "From Evil Eye to Poetic Eye: Witch Beliefs and Physiognomy in the Age of Enlightenment." Practicing Progress: The Promise and Limitations of Enlightenment. Ed. Richard Schade, Dieter Sevin, and Frank Trommler. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 35-57.

  32. "The Eternal Feminine and the Eternal Triangle: Men Between Two Women in Bernstein's Naturalistic Dramas." From Fin-de-Siècle to Theresienstadt: The Works and Life of the Writer Elsa Porges-Bernstein. Ed. Helga Kraft and Dagmar C. G. Lorenz. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 145-61.

  33. "Einleitung." Macht des Weibes: Zwei historische Tragödien von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Ed. Susanne Kord. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2005. 1-18.

  34. "Einleitung." Letzte Chancen: Vier Einakter von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Ed. Susanne Kord. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2005. 1-20.

  35. "Visionaries and Window Shoppers: Anna Louisa Karsch Between Bourgeois Aesthetic Theory and Lower-Class Authorship." The Lessing Yearbook 35 (2003): 169-201.

  36. "Discursive Dissociations: Women Playwrights as Observers of the Sturm und Drang." The Camden House Companion to the Sturm und Drang. Ed. David Hill. (Rochester: Camden House, 2002.) 241-73.

  37. "Developing Literacy and Literary Competence: Challenges for Foreign Language Departments." Co-authored with Heidi Byrnes. SLA and the Literature Classroom: Fostering Dialogues. Ed. Virginia Scott and Holly Tucker. New York: MLA, 2001. 35-73.

  38. "The Hunchback of Weimar: Louise von Göchhausen and the Weimar Grotesque." Unwrapping Goethe's Weimar: Essays in Cultural Studies and Local Knowledge. Ed. Burkhard Henke, Susanne Kord, Simon Richter. (Rochester: Camden House, 1999.) 232-69.

  39. "Frühe dramatische Entwürfe: Drei Dramatikerinnen im 18. Jahrhundert." Frauen Literatur Geschichte. Ed. Hiltrud Gnüg and Renate Möhrmann. (Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 1999.) 231-46, 694-97.

  40. "Luise Gottsched (1713-1762)." Women Writers in German-Speaking Countries. A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Elke Frederiksen and Elizabeth G. Ametsbichler. (Westport: The Greenwood Press, 1998.) 160-70.

  41. "Einleitung." Charlotte von Stein, Dramen. Ed. Susanne Kord. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1998. 1-34.

  42. "Bernstein, Elsa (1866-1949)." Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990. 2 vols. Ed. Dieter K. Buse and Jürgen C. Doerr. New York & London: Garland, 1998. I 102-03.

  43. "The Curtain Never Rises: Femininity and Theater Censorship in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany." The German Quarterly 70.4 (Fall 1997): 358-75.

  44. "Adaptation/Translation." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 6-7.

  45. "Anticlimax." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 21-22.

  46. "Authorship." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 31-34.

  47. "Canon, Literary." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 62-64.

  48. "Erudite Woman/Gelehrte." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 124-26.

  49. "Preface." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 414-15.

  50. "Protagonist/Antagonist." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 420-22.

  51. "Reception." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 437-39.

  52. "Tragedy, Historical." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 521-23.

  53. "Woman Writer." The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport, London: The Greenwood Press, 1997. 566-68.

  54. "All's Well that Ends Well? Marriage, Madness, and Other Happy Endings in Eighteenth-Century Women's Comedies." The Lessing Yearbook XXVIII (1996): 181-97.

  55. "Not in Goethe's Image: The Playwright Charlotte von Stein." Thalia's Daughters: German Women Dramatists from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Ed. Susan Cocalis and Ferrel Rose (Tübingen: Francke/Narr, 1996): 53-75.

  56. "Eternal Love or Sentimental Discourse? Gender Dissonance and Women's Passionate 'Friendships'." Outing Goethe and His Age. Ed. Alice Kuzniar (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996): 228-49, 270-73.

  57. "Die Gelehrte als Zwitterwesen in Schriften von Autoren des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts." Querelles: Jahrbuch für Frauenforschung 1 (1996): 158-89.

  58. "Frauennatur und Kinderspiel: Zur geschlechtsspezifischen Sozialisation in Kinderdramen weiblicher Autoren 1820-1865." Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts (Winter 1994): 221-53.

  59. "The Innocent Translator: Translation as Pseudonymous Behavior in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing." The Jerome Quarterly 9/4 (August/Sept. 1994): 11-13.

  60. "Performing Genders: Three Plays on the Power of Women." Monatshefte 86.1 (Spring 1994): 95-115.

  61. "The Innocent Translator: Translation as Pseudonymous Behavior in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing." The Jerome Quarterly 9/4 (August/Sept. 1994). 11-13.

  62. "Tugend im Rampenlicht: Friederike Sophie Hensel als Schauspielerin und Dramatikerin." The German Quarterly 66/1 (Winter 1993): 1-19.

  63. "Women as Children, Women as Childkillers: Poetic Images of Infanticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany." Eighteenth-Century Studies 26/3 (Spring 1993): 449-66.

  64. "'Und drinnen waltet die züchtige Hausfrau'? Caroline Pichler's Fictional Auto/Biographies." Women in German Yearbook VIII (1993): 141-58.

  65. "Fading Out: Invisible Women in Marieluise Fleißer's Early Dramas." Women in German Yearbook V (1989): 57-72.

  66. "The Right to Mount the Scaffold: The French Revolution and La Petite Différence Between Human Rights and Women's Rights." Stet (May 1989): 4, 9.

Reviews

Reviews

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Reviews of 12 Monkeys


Reviews of Lovable Crooks


Reviews of Little Horrors


​Review of Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities


Reviews of Murderesses in German Writing


Review of Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines 


Review of Women Peasant Poets in England, Scotland and Germany


Review of Little Detours

Media & News
 

  • Interview with The New York Times â€‹for 'In "The Innocents," Kids Behaving Deadly,'  by Erik Piepenburg (published April 2022)

  • Interview with The Guardian for 'Eddie Munster and me: the secret lives of spooky, sinister screen children', by Sirin Kale (published 16 June 2021)

  • "Horror Films as Guilt Trips on an Ethical Mission." Interview with 'In Search of Europe.' YouTube

  • Lecture "Venomous Women: Poison Murderesses in Nineteenth-Century Germany" featured in Drama on One, RTE Radio 1, Dublin, Ireland. Broadcast 28 May, 2017, 8PM.

  • Interviewed for "Need More Magic in Your Life?" by Francesca Brown, Stylist Magazine, 14 November 2016 (print and online).

  • Featured research project "In Detail" in Times Higher Education, 12 February 2015 (print and online).

  • Interviewed for documentary "Why Horror?", dir. Nicolas Kleiman and Rob Lindsay. Release date 31 October 2014. 

  • Interviewed for the contribution "Briten lernen zu wenige Sprachen," Heute, ZDF. Aired 20 November 2013.

  • Interviewed for a documentary on Georg Büchner, BBC 3 Sunday Feature. Aired 13 February 2011.

  • Expert guest on In Our Time, hosted by Melwyn Bragg, BBC Radio 4, on the German Sturm und Drang. Aired 14 October 2010.

  • Speaker at 'The Art of Revolution', Platform for the matinee performance of Georg Büchner's Danton's Death, The Royal National Theatre, 18 September 2010. 

  • Expert guest on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, on the meaning of Faust in various cultures. Aired 14 September 2010.

  • UCL Lunch Hour Lecture: 'Venomous Women: Poison Murderesses in 19th-Century Germany.' 23 February 2010. Listen to the lecture on youtube 

  • "Orient Express." The Times Literary Supplement. 18/25 December 2009. 8-9.

  • "Why Doesn't Britain Trust Its Academics?" With W. Daniel Wilson, Leonard Olschner, and Robert Weninger. Homo Oeconomicus 24.1 (2007): 255-257. Shorter version published as "Drowning in bureaucracy." The Guardian, 27 December 2006.

  • Interview with Schmidt: London's Only German Magazine (Who's Who Section), October 2005.

  • Featured Guest on radio show, “Battle of the Books,” Series “What’s the Word,” with a topic on the German Enlightenment and Storm and Stress. Aired December, 2003, National Public Radio, 27 states, USA. 

  • Featured Article in Der Spiegel (December 2001), by Andrea Leiber: “Professorin Susanne Kord.”

  • Biographical article, photo, and poetry in: Nordamerikanische Wochen-Post 22 (March 11-17, 1995), The Supplement, p. B2.

  • Radio show on Kord's book Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen, Swiss National Radio, Series “Best Books.” Oct. 5, 1993. (Included a 1/2 hour interview with Kord about the book). Aired October 19, 1993. 

  • Interviews on various cultural or literary subjects in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times.

  • Regular reviewer for and contributor to The Times Literary Supplement.

Awards

Awards & Honours

  • Election to a Fellowship of the British Academy, July 2021 

  • Dedication of the Drama Collection of the Sophie Digital Library Works by German-Speaking Women to Susanne Kord

  • 2012 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award, for Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities: Gender, Genre, and Politics, co-authored with E. Krimmer, 2011 

  • 2011 Forum Prize (Best Article of the Year), for ‘The Rule of Law and the Role of Literature: German Public Debates on Husband Killers and Human Rights,’ Forum for Modern Language Studies, January 2012 

  • Second Prize, Scaglione Award, Modern Language Association of America, December 2004, for Women Peasant Poets in Eighteenth-Century England, Scotland and Germany, 2003 

  • Margherita-von-Brentano-Preis, Freie Universität Berlin, ‘für besonders hervorragende Projekte zur Förderung von Frauen’ (‘for particularly outstanding projects furthering the advancement of women’, January 1997) 

  • Robert L. Kahn Lyrik-Preis, Society for Contemporary American Literature in German (1994), for poetry 

  • Book of the Month-Award, Georg Olms Publishing House, March 1998 (for my edition of Charlotte von Stein, Dramen, 1998) 

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