Paul Cooke

Professor of German Cultural Studies
Pro-Dean for Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Arts

Tel: 0113 343 3507
Fax: 0113 34 33517
Email: p.cooke@leeds.ac.uk

BA (Birmingham)
MA (Nottingham) 
Ph.D (Birmingham)

Biography

Educated at the University of Birmingham (BA and PhD) and Nottingham (MA), I worked for a year as a Lektor at the University of Cologne and for 3 years as a Lecturer at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. I joined the department in Leeds in September 2002.

Teaching

Research Interests

• The relationship between German and US cinema
• Contemporary German Cinema
• The representation of 'Victimhood' in German culture
• 'Ostalgie' and the question of East German integration

Publications

Monographs

• Speaking the Taboo: a study of the work of Wolfgang Hilbig, 247 pp., Amsterdam/Atlanta, Rodopi, 2000.
• The Pocket Essential to German Expressionist Film, 96 pp., London, Pocket Essential Press, 2002.
• Representing East Germany: From Colonization to Nostalgia, pp. 236., Oxford, Berg, 2005.

Edited Volumes

• with Jonathan Grix (eds.), East Germany – Continuity and Change: German Monitor, 46, 185 pp., 2000.
• with Jonathan Grix (eds.), East German Distinctiveness in a unified Germany, 171pp., Birmingham, University of Birmingham Press, 2002.
• with Andrew Plowman (eds.), German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi, 261pp., Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2003.
• with Rob Stone (eds.), Special Edition of Studies in European Cinema, 2/1, 2004
• with Stuart Taberner (eds), German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century Beyond Normalization, 245pp, Rochester: Camden House, 2006.
  
• with Rob Stone, Images of Europe in European Film: Special edition of New Cinemas 4:2 (2006)
• with Danielle Hipkins, ECRF 2005: Special edition of Studies in European Cinema 3:3 (2006)
• with Rob Stone, Screening Identities: Special edition of Journal of European Studies 15: 1( 2007)
• Dialogues with Hollywood: the place of American Film to World Cinema , 266 pp., Basingstoke , Palgrave ( 2007)
  

Book Chapters

• ‘Aufarbeitung oder Ästhetisierung? Die Stasi-Vergangenheit in der Literatur: Wolfgang Hilbigs »Ich«, Heiner Timmermann (ed.), Die DDR- Politik und Ideologie als Instrument, pp. 859-871, Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1999.
• ‘Countering “Realitätsverlust”: Wolfgang Hilbig and the Postmodern Condition’, Ronald Speirs (ed.), The Writers’ Morality: Festschrift for Michael Butler, pp. 121-142, Oxford, Peter Lang, 2000.
• ‘From Opfer to Täter? Identity and the Stasi in Post-Wende East German Literature’, Martin Kane (ed.), Legacies and identity: East and West German literary responses to unification, pp. 51-66, Oxford, Peter Lang, 2002.
• ‘Literature and the Question of East German Cultural Identity since the Wende’, Paul Cooke and Jonathan Grix (eds.), East German Distinctiveness in a unified Germany, pp. 151-167, Birmingham, University of Birmingham Press, 2002.
• ‘German Cultural Studies’, Jonathan Grix (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Contemporary Germany, pp. 78-112, Birmingham, University of Birmingham Press, 2002.
• ‘The Stasi as Panopticon: Wolfgang Hilbig’s »Ich«’, Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman (eds.), German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi pp. 139-153, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2003.
• ‘East German Writing in the Age of Globalisation’, Stuart Taberner (ed.), Literature and Globalisation, pp. Birmingham, University of Birmingham Press, 2004.
• with Christopher Young, 'Selling Sex or Dealing with History? German football in literature and film and the quest to normalize the nation Selling Sex or Dealing with History? German football in literature and film and the quest to normalize the nation', Alan Tomlinson, Christopher Young (eds), German Football: History, Culture, Society , pp. 181-203, London , Routledge, 2005.
• 'German Neo-noir Film', Andrew Spicer (ed.), European Film Noir , pp. 164-184, Manchester, MUP, 2006.
• 'The Continually Suffering Nation? Cinematic Representations of German Victimhood', Bill Niven, (ed.), pp. 76-92, Basingstoke , Palgrave, 2006.
• 'Abnormal Consensus The New Internationalism of German Cinema',in German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century , pp. 223-237.
• with Stuart Taberner, 'Introduction', in German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century , pp. 1-17.
• ‘From Caligari to Edward Scissorhands: the continuing metacinematic journey of German Expressionism', in Dialogues with Hollywood, pp. 17-34.
• ‘Introduction: World Cinema's "Dialogues" with Hollywood, in Dialogues with Hollywood, pp. 1-16.
• 'From Dr Seltsam to Lieutenant Surf: The Berlin " Vorlesebuhnen" and Contemporary German Literature', Julian Preece, Frank Finlay and Ruth J. Owen (eds), New German Literature: Life-Writing and Dialogue within the Arts, vol 1, pp. 161-181, Bern, Peter Lang, 2007.
• '"GDR Literature" in the Berlin Republic', Stuart Taberner (ed.), Contemporary German Fiction: Writing in the Berlin Republic, pp. 56-71, Cambridge, CUP, 2007.
  

Journal Articles

• with Nicholas Hubble, ‘Die volkseigene Opposition? The State, the Stasi and the Alternative Culture in the GDR’, German Politics, 6/2, 117-138, 1997.
• ‘“Das schreiende Amt”: the “Bourgeois” Tradition and the Problem of “Objectivity” in Wolfgang Hilbig’s abwesenheit’, German Life and Letters, 53, 261-278, 2000.
• ‘Continuity and Taboo: Sexual Repression and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Wolfgang Hilbig’s Die Weiber’, East Germany – Continuity and Change: German Monitor, 46, 1-14, 2000.
• ‘The Krimi and the Criminal State: Wolfgang Hilbig’s Eine Übertragung’, Modern Languages Review, 96, 1029-1041, 2001.
• ‘Performing Ostalgie: Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee’, German Life and Letters, 56, 156-167, 2003.
• ‘Beyond a Trotzidentität? Storytelling and the Postcolonial Voice in Ingo Schulze’s Simple Storys’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 39, 290-305, 2003.
• ‘Escaping the burden of the past: Questions of East German Identity in the Work of Ingo Schramm’, Seminar, 27, 33-44, 2003.
•   Paul Cooke, ‘Ostdeutsche kulturelle Identität und der Cyberspace’, Berliner Debatte Initial, 1 15-26 , 2003
• 'Whatever happened to Veronica Voss? Rehabilitating the “68ers” and the problem of Westalgie in Oskar Roehler’s Die Unberührbare (2000)', German Studies Review, 27, 33-44, 2004.
• ‘Surfing for Eastern Difference: Ostalgie, Identity and Cyberspace’, Seminar, 40, 207-220, 2004.
• Ostalgie's Not What It Used to Be: The German Television GDR Craze of 2003, German Politics & Society Vol. 22 · No. 4, 2004.
• ‘Oliver Hirschbiegel's Der Untergang (2004): an image of German Wartime Suffering too far?', German Monitor , 67, 247-261, 2007.
  
• 'Supporting Contemporary German Film: How Triumphant is the Free Market?' , in Journal of Contemporary European Studies 15:1, 35-46, 2007.
• 'Dresden(2006), TeamWorx and Titanic (1997): German Wartime Suffering as Hollywood Disaster Movie', in German Life and Letters, 61, 279-294, 2008.
  

Translation

• Georg Büchner, Woyzeck, London, Larks Theatre, 1996, translated by Paul Cooke. First performed at the Bird’s Nest Theatre, London, 10 September 1996.

Other Projects

• Co-editor of the New Germany in Context book series, with Dr. Jonathan Grix, published by the University of Birmingham Press.
• Co-editor of New Cinemas (Journal of Contemporary Film, published by Intellect Press)
• On the advisory board for Studies in European Cinema (published by Intellect Press)
• Part of an International Networks Project Beyond ‘Normalisation’: Politics, Culture and Society in Germany in the Social Democratic Era funded by the The British Academy
• Principal Investigator in International Networks Project Screening  Identities:
  Reconfiguring Identity Politics in Contemporary European Cinema funded by the The British Academy
• Co-investigator on Major AHRC award on 'Discourses on German Wartime Suffering'
• Principal Investigator on a BA/WUN-funded project in collaboration with Professor Marc Silberman, Wisconsin Madison, 'Screening War in Germany'.

Conferences Organised

• East Germany: Continuity and Change 1945-1998, held at the Institute for German Studies, University of Birmingham, May 1998.
• University of Wales German Studies Conference, Gregynog Hall, November 1999
• Workshop on ‘Representations of the Stasi in German Literature’, University of Liverpool, April 2001
• Workshop on ‘East Germany Today’, Institute for German Studies, University of Birmingham, June 2001
• Screening Identities: Second Annual Conference of the European Cinema Research Forum, University of Wales Aberystwyth, January 2002
• Workshop on European Identity in Contemporary European Cinema, University of Leeds, May 2003
• European Cinema Research Forum, July 2005.
• Screening War workshop in Leeds, July 2007 and in Wisconsin in November 2008.