Associate Professor of German

        and Cinema and Comparative Literature

Office: 571 PH
Phone: 319-335-2280
E-Mail: astrid-oesmann(at)uiowa.edu

• Selected Publications/Projects
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• Curriculum Vitae

Astrid Oesmann specializes in modern theatre and performance studies, literary theory, and philosophy of history. She is the author of Staging History: Brecht’s Social Concepts of Ideology (SUNY Press, 2005) and is currently at work on a book-length study, “Masks, Politics, and the European Avant-garde.” This project examines how different artistic movements during the first half of the twentieth century appropriated the mask for their theatrical experiments at moments of political and social crisis. Recently taught courses explored Brecht’s theatre in the context of twentieth century philosophy and theatre anthropology, the politics of German film and its relation to the optical unconscious, as well as propaganda and subversion in literature and film during and after German fascism.

Prof. Oesmann's research areas include German drama & theater from 18th century to the present, 20th-century performance studies, German film, literary theory, philosophy of history, and 20th-century European visual culture.