Department of German and Russian Studies
German and Russian Studies @ the MU logo University of Missouri
451 Strickland Hall | Columbia, MO 65211-4170
email: grs@missouri.edu | phone: 573-882-4328 | fax: 573-884-8456
Faculty | Cook

Roger F. Cook

Roger Cook

Roger Cook hiking

Professor of German
Chair of MU Film Studies Committee
Education: Ph.D., 1986, University of California, Berkeley
Office: 449 Strickland Hall
Phone: 573-882-9452
Email: cookrf@missouri.edu

In addition to my position as Professor of German I serve as the Director of Film Studies. I oversee the interdepartmental Film Studies Program, which includes courses from such diverse departments as German and Russian Studies, English, Romance Languages, Theatre, Art History and Archaeology, Philosophy, Classical Languages and the IT Program. We established the Minor in Film Studies in 2001 and will soon offer a B.A. in Film Studies (expected in early 2010). The program focuses primarily on the critical study of film as a cultural practice but complements this academic area with instruction and practical application in filmproduction—
including three feature films shot on campus since 2005.


Research

My research interests range from film (with a focus on German cinema) to contemporary critical theory and 19th-century German literature and culture. In my current work I am exploring theoretical issues related to film as a technological medium and the aesthetic practices of cinema. My particular areas of interest include embodied modes of film viewing, affect and film reception, cognitive science and film viewing, construction of narrative space, and movement in film. At the moment I am testing my theoretical ideas in a study of the films of the German New Wave (Berlin School).

Teaching


I direct and lecture in the department’s team-taught two-semester course on German Civilization:

German 2310, German Civilization: From the Beginnings to 1850
German 2320, German Civilization: From 1850 to the Present

Other courses I have taught recently include:
Film 2810, Introduction to Film Analysis
Film 2820, Trends in World Cinema
German 3830, History of German Cinema
German 3840, German Film After 1945
German 8087, Graduate Seminar: Adaptations: German Film and literature

 

By the Rivers of Babylon
By the Rivers of Babylon:
Heinrich Heine's Late Songs
and Reflections
also available from Amazon

A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine
A Companion to the
Works of Heinrich Heine
also available from Amazon

The Cinema of Wim Wenders
The Cinema of Wim Wenders:
Image, Narrative, and
the Postmodern Condition
also available from Amazon

Publications

Books

By the Rivers of Babylon: Heinrich Heine's Late Songs and Reflections. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998. 392 pp.

The Demise of the Author: Autonomy and the German Writer 1770-1848. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. 226 pp.

Edited Books

A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine. Ed. Roger F. Cook. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 2002. 373 pp.

The Cinema of Wim Wenders: Image, Narrative, and the Postmodern Condition. Ed. Roger F. Cook and Gerd Gemünden. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996. 286 pp.

Selected Articles


“Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei: Edukating the Post-Left Generation” in The Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and its Politics at the Turn of the New Century. Ed. Jaimey Fisher and Brad Prager. Forthcoming in Wayne State University Press, 2009.

“Nostalgic Travels Through Space and Time: Good Bye Lenin!"
in Violating Time: History, Memory, and Nostalgia in Cinema. Ed. Christina Lee. Wallflower Press, 2008.

“Die Wiederkehr der Religion: Heine aus amerikanischer Perspektive” in Sammelband zum Heine-Schumann Kongress. Ed. Joseph A. Kruse. Metzler Verlag, 2007.

“Good Bye, Lenin!: Free-Market Nostalgia for Socialist Consumerism” in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies. Special Issue. "Between Historisation, Nostalgia and Mythmaking: Contemporary German Culture." (Spring 2007).

“Re-charting the Skies Above Berlin: Nostalgia East and West” in German Politics and Society (Spring 2005).

"Vaterlandsliebe in Exile: Heinrich Heine and German-Jewish National Identity" in: Zur deutsch-jüdischen Literaturgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert. Ed. Mark Gelber. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003.

"The Riddle of Love: Romantic Poetry and Historical Progress" in: A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine.
Ed. Roger F. Cook. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 2002.

"'Citronia': 'Kennst du das Land …?': A Riddle of Sexuality and Desire." in: Heine-Jahrbuch (1996): 81-112.
Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, vol . 25. Gale Research (1999).

"Postmodern Culture and Film Narrative: Paris Texas and Beyond" in: The Cinema of Wim Wenders. Ed. Roger F. Cook and Gerd Gemünden. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996. 121-35.

"Angels, Fiction, and History in Berlin: Wings of Desire"
in: The Cinema of Wim Wenders. Ed. Roger F. Cook and
Gerd Gemünden. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996. 163-190.

"Melodrama or Cinematic Folk Tale? Story and History in Deutschland, bleiche Mutter." in: The Germanic Review, 66.3 (Summer 1991): 113-129.

"Reader Response and Authorial Strategies: E. T. A. Hoffmann's View from Des Vetters Eckfenster." in: German Studies Review 12.3 (1989): 421-435.

"Relocating the Author: A New Perspective on the Narrator in Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann" in: Franz Grillparzer's "Der arme Spielmann": New Critical Approaches. Ed. Clifford A. Bernd. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1987. 322-336.

"Film Images and Reality: Alexander Kluge's Aesthetics of Cinema." in: Colloquia Germanica 18.4 (1985): 281-299.