German Television: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

✍ Scribed by Larson Powell (editor); Robert Shandley (editor)

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 242
• Series: Film Europa; 19
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Long overlooked by scholars and critics, the history and aesthetics of German television have only recently begun to attract serious, sustained attention, and then largely within Germany. This ambitious volume, the first in English on the subject, provides a much-needed corrective in the form of penetrating essays on the distinctive theories, practices, and social-historical contexts that have defined television in Germany. Encompassing developments from the dawn of the medium through the Cold War and post-reunification, this is an essential introduction to a rich and varied media tradition.

✦ Table of Contents

CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction. German Television: Culture, Technology, or Cultural Technology?
Part I. Technical Prehistory and Theoretical Approaches
1. The Third Image: Contingencies and Ruptures in the Technological History of Television
2. Boredom, War, and Paradox: German Theories of Television
Part II. GDR Television
3. “Just Like in the West, Except Diff erent”: Television and Its Relationship to Film in the Context of 1950s GDR Development
4. Adventures in Stagnation: Gott fried Kolditz’s Unfi lmed Project Zimtpiraten
Part III. Television in the Federal Republic: Auteurist TV
5. “A Challenge, Maybe the Greatest for a Filmmaker”: Televisual Perspectives on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Martha (1974)
6. Nah am Fern: Kluge TV
Part IV. Present and Future Perspectives
7. Television History in Germany: Media-Political and Media-Ethical Aspects
8. Germany as TV Show Import Market
9. Heritage, Heimat, and German Historical “Event Television”: Nico Hofmann’s teamWorx
10. Once Upon a Crime: Tatort, Germany’s Longest Running Police Procedural
Bibliography
Index