Dr Elizabeth Ward
- Position: Lecturer in German and World Cinemas
- Areas of expertise: German Cinema; German Democratic Republic; Historical Film; Film Festivals and the Cold War
- Email: E.M.Ward@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: Michael Sadler
Profile
I am a film historian specialising in East German cinema and film during the Cold War.
I hold a MA in Modern and Medieval Languages and a MPhil in Screen Media and Cultures from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in German from the University of Leeds.
I am a steering committee member of the German Screen Studies Network. Alongside my research and teaching, I regularly work with schools and museums to support and promote German studies beyond the academy.
Research interests
I research East German cinema in its social and historical context, with a particular focus on the relationship between GDR cinema and the West. I am completing a monograph on East German film and the Holocaust, and have published on both East German film and twenty-first century German cinema. My current research project examines the relationship between film festivals and cultural diplomacy in Cold War Germany.
Publications
Monograph
- East German Film and the Holocaust (New York: Berghahn Books, 2020).
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
- "Screen Identities. Maximilian Schell and The Man in the Glass Booth", in Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum (ed.), Maximilian Schell (Frankfurt: Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, 2019), 90–97.
- "Revisiting the Crimes of the Past: The Image of the Perpetrator in Recent German Holocaust Film", Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History (2019).
- "Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage (2005), in Alexandra Lloyd (ed.), The White Rose: Reading, Writing, Resistance, (Oxford: Treasures of the Taylorian, 2018), 79–96.
- "Who is Heinz Stielke? Questions of Identity in Michael Kann’s "Stielke, Heinz, fünfzehn"", in Stephan Ehrig, Marcel Thomas and David Zell (eds), The GDR today: New Interdisciplinary Approaches to East German History, Memory and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018), 43–63.
- "Dismantling the Third Reich: in Cate Shortland's Lore", Film and History 47(1) (2017), 18–27.
- "Contesting the memory of Frank Beyer’s Jacob the Liar", in David Seymour and Mercedes Camino (eds), The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Contesting/Contested Memories (Routledge: New York, 2016), 163–181.
- “Screening out the East: The Playing out of Inter-German Relations at the Cannes Film Festival”, German Life and Letters 68(1) (2015), 37–53.
- "(Re)Presenting the Past in Uwe Boll’s Auschwitz (2011)", in Tanja Schult and Diana Popescu (eds), Revisiting Holocaust Representation in the Post-Witness Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 198–213.
- "Zur strategischen Aneignung der Anne Frank-Figur in Konrad Wolfs Professor Mamlock (1961)", in Peter Seibert, Jana Piper and Alfonso Meoli (eds), (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2013), 54–62.
Book Reviews
- "Review of "Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration" by Marek Haltof", Studies in European Cinema, 2019.
- "Review of "Re-Imagining DEFA: East German Cinema in its National and Transnational Contexts" edited by Seán Allan and Sebastian Heiduschke", The Modern Language Review, 2017.
- "Review of "DEFA after East Germany" edited by Brigitta B Wagner", Studies in European cinema, 2017.
- "Review of "Mothers, Comrades, and Outcasts in East German Women’s Film" by Jennifer L. Creech", The Modern Language Review, 2016.
- "Review of "The Nazi Past in Contemporary German Film. Viewing Experiences of Intimacy and Immersion" by Axel Bangert", New Cinemas, 2016.
- "Review of "Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA's Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade against Communism" by Karen M. Paget", Journal of American Culture, 2016.
- "Review of "The Paradox of German Power" by Hans Kundnani", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2016.
- "Review of “East, West and Centre: Reframing Post-1989 European Cinema", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2015.
- "Review of "Sun, Sex, And Socialism: Cuba In The German Imaginary" by Jennifer Ruth Hosek", Sixties, 2014.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>
Qualifications
- PhD in German (Leeds)
- MPhil in Screen Media and Cultures (Cantab)
- MA in Modern and Medieval Languages (Cantab)
Professional memberships
- German Screen Studies Network
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies
Student education
I teach German film from the Weimar period to modern-day.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Research groups and institutes
- German
- Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures