Bio

Professor Kaes is the author of several books in English and German that deal with multidisciplinary and comparative aspects of film history and theory. He teaches silent film, the history of German cinema, and American film noir, with special emphasis on the film culture of the Weimar Republic as well as the relationship between film, memory, and trauma. He also offers courses in film theory and critical theory, including Frankfurt School and its aftermath. Teaching at Berkeley since 1981, he served as Director of Film Studies at UC Berkeley from 1991-1996 and Co-director (with Kaja Silverman) 1996-1999. In 1985 he co-founded the bi-annual German Film Institute; he has given lectures and workshops in Amsterdam, Berlin, Canberra, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Vienna, and Tel Aviv. Since 1990 he is the co-editor of the book series “Weimar and Now: German Critical History.” Major awards include Fellowships of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1978 and the Humboldt Foundation in 1984/85, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1990, and an NEH and UC President’s Research Fellowship in 1995. He was also a Scholar in Residence at the Getty Center for Art History and the Humanities in 1989/90 and at Bellagio in 1998. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Humboldt Research Prize. He was a Visiting Professor at the Australian National University in 1995, at Harvard University in 1999; and Tel Aviv University in 2007.

Selected Publications

Books
Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009.

Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration, 1955-1925, co-edited with Deniz Göktürk and David Gramling. Berkeley: University of California, 2006.

M. London: British Film Institute (Film Classics), 2001.

The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, co-edited with Martin Jay and Edward Dimendberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Geschichte des Deutschen Films, co-edited with Wolfgang Jacobsen and Hans Helmut Prinzler. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994.

From Hitler to Heimat: The Return of History as Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Deutschlandbilder. Munich: edition text und kritik, 1987.

Kino-Debatte: Texte zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Film. Munich: dtv, 1978.

Expressionismus in Amerika: Rezeption und Innovation. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1975

Selected Articles and Book Chapters (since 1990)

“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Expressionism and Cinema.” In Ted Perry, ed. Masterpieces of Modernist Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University, 2006, 41-59.

“Movies and Masses.” In Jeffrey T.Schnapp and Matthew Tiews, eds. Crowds. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006, 149-158.

“New German Cinema as National Cinema.” In Detlev Junker, ed. The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1968-1990. A Handbook, vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 356-364.

“Weimar Cinema: The Predicament of Modernity.” In Elizabeth Ezra, ed. European Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 59-77.

“Siegfried—A German Film Star. Performing the Nation in Lang’s Nibelungen Film.” In Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter, and Deniz Göktürk, eds. The German Cinema Book. London: British Film Institute, 2002, pp.63-70.

“A Stranger in the House: Fritz Lang’s Fury and the Cinema of Exile,” New GermanCritique 89 (Spring/Summer, 2003): 33-58.

“Der Mythos des Deutschen in Fritz Langs Nibelungen-Film.” In Hermann Danuser and Herfried Munckler, eds. Deutsche Meister—böse Geister? Nationale Selbstfindung in der Musik. Schliengen: Edition Argus, 2001, 326-343.

“Das bewegte Gesicht: Zur Grossaufnahme im Film.” In Claudia Schmolders and Sander Gillman, eds. Gesichter der Weimarer Republik. Eine physiognomische Kulturgeschichte. Oldenburg: Dumont, 2000, 156-174.

”Die nationale Dimension in der Filmgeschichtsschreibung.” In Eckart Goebel and Wolfgang Klein, eds. Literaturforschung heute. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1999, 193-200.

“Leaving Home: Film, Migration, and the Urban Experience.” New German Critique 74 (Spring/Summer 1998):179-192.

“Cinema and Migration.” In Kolnoa: Studies in Cinema and Television - Tel Aviv University 1 (1998,): 101-115.

Media and Nations: Global Communication and Cultural Identity.” In Mabel Lee and Meng Hua, eds. Cultural Dialogue and Misreading. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997, 299-303.

“1979--the American Television Series Holocaust Is Shown in West Germany: History, Memory, and Film.” In Sander L. Gilman and Jack Zipes, eds. The Yale Handbook of Jewish Writing in Germany, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, 783-790.

“German Cinema 1960-1990.” In Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ed. The Oxford History of World Cinema,. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 614-626.

“Sites of Desire: The Weimar Street Film.” In Dietrich Neumann, ed. Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1996, 26-32.

“What To Do With Germany? American Debates about the Future of Germany 1942-1947.” German Politics and Society 13 (Fall 1995): 130-141.

“How German Is It? Probleme beim Schreiben einer nationalen Filmgeschichte.” Filmkunst 148 (Winter 1995): 54-63.

“German Cultural History and the Study of Film: Ten Theses and a Postscript.” New German Critique 65 (Spring-Summer 1995): 47-58.

“Cinema and Modernity: On Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” In Jost Hermand and Reinhod Grimm, eds. High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, 19-35.

“Metropolis: City, Cinema, Modernity.” In Timothy O. Benson, ed. Expressionist Utopias. LACMA: Los Angeles, 1993, 146-165.

“The Cold Gaze: Notes on Mobilization and Modernity.” New German Critique 59 (Spring/Summer 1993): 105-117.

“Der Film in der Weimarer Republik.” In Wolfgang Jacobsen, Anton Kaes, and Hans Helmut Prinzler, eds. Geschichte des deutschen Films Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993, 39-100.

“Holocaust and the End of History: Reflections on Syberberg.” In Saul Friedländer, ed. Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the ‘Final Solution’. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1992, 206-222.

"Modernity and its Discontents: Notes on Alterity inWeimar Cinema.” Qui Parle 5 (Spring/Summer 1992): 135-142.

“The New Historicism: Writing Literary History in the Postmodern Era.” Monatshefte 84 (Summer 1992): 148-58.

“Silent Cinema.” Monatshefte 82 (Fall 1990): 246-256.

“History and Film: Public Memory in the Age of Electronic Dissemination.” History and Memory 2 (Fall 1990): 111-129.