Dr Chris Homewood

Profile

Educated at the University of Bangor, North Wales (BA), the University of Nottingham (MA) and the University of Leeds (PhD), I joined the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies as Lecturer in German and World Cinemas in 2007.

Responsibilities

• Programme Manager, MA Film Studies

Research interests

Cinematic representations of left-wing terrorism (RAF) and ‘1968’ in Germany

The cultural memory of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF)

Weimar Cinema

New German Cinema

Post-Wall German Cinema

The ‘Berlin School’ of filmmakers

Genre in World Cinemas

Popular geopolitics, and orientalism(s), especially in the relationship between Hollywood and China

Potential areas of supervision

I would welcome approaches from students interested in researching the following areas:

• All areas of German Cinema
• Cinematic representations of left-wing terrorism and ‘1968’ in Germany
• Hollywood (and Orientalism)

Research Degree supervision:

Supervisor for James Rose (MAR), ‘The Living and the Dead: the Gothic Monsters of Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth': successful completion, Autumn 2010.

Supervisor for Rachael Plant (MAR), ‘Resistance Narratives in Recent German Cinema’: successful completion, Autumn 2012.

Supervisor for David Lashbrook (MAR), 'Carefully Watched for a Reason: Should Music Biopics be Considered as a Genre in their Own Right?': successful completion, autumn 2013.

Co-supervisor for Joanna Gilbert (PhD), ‘Fluidity and anti-essentialism in Alexander Kluge’s depictions of gender’: successful completion, autumn 2014.

Supervisor for Rachel Green (PhD), 'Contemporary Austrian Anti-Heimat Films': successful completion, spring 2017.

Research

a) Books

In preparation for Berghahn: From Baader to Prada: Cultural Memory, Filmmakers and the RAF (monograph) 

b) Edited Volumes

With Paul Cooke (eds.), New Directions in German Cinema (London/NY: I. B. Tauris, 2011)

With Jaimey Fisher (eds.), Stars and Stardom in Germany (Edinburgh UP, fortcoming 2025)

c) Articles/Chapters in Books

• ‘The Limits of Hollywood as an Instrument of Chinese Public Diplomacy and Soft Power’, in Stephanie Dennison and Rachel Dwyer (eds.), Cinema and Soft Power: Configuring the National and Transnational in Geo-politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2021)
• '"Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China"? Chinese Soft Power, Geo-Imaginaries and Neo-Orientalism(s) in recent U.S. Blockbusters', in Robert Saunders and Vlad Strukov (eds.), Popular Geopolitics: Plotting an Evolving Interdiscipline (Routledge, 2018)
• 'Politics In, and Of, the Berlin School: Terrorism, Refusal, and Inertia' in Marco Abel and Jaimey Fisher (eds.), A Transnational Art-Cinema: The Berlin School and its Global Contexts (Wayne State UP, 2018)
• 'Wind', in by Roger Cook, Lutz Koepnick, Kristin Kopp, Brad Prager (eds.), Berlin School Glossary: An ABC of the New Wave in German Cinema (Bristol: Intellect, 2013)
• ‘From Baader to Prada: Memory and Myth in Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)’, in Paul Cooke and Chris Homewood (eds.), New Directions in German Cinema (London/NY: I. B. Tauris, 2011)
• ‘Have the Best Ideas Stood the Test of Time? Negotiating the Legacy of '1968' in The Edukators’, in Ingo Cornils and Sarah Waters (eds.), Memories of 1968. International Perspectives (Cultural History and Literary Imagination Vol.16), (Bern, Peter Lang 2010)
• 'Making Invisible Memory Visible: Communicative Memory and Taboo in Andres Veiel's Black Box BRD (2001)', in Gerrit-Jan Berendse and Ingo Cornils, eds., Baader-Meinhof Returns. History and Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism (German Monitor) ( Amsterdam / New York: Rodopi, 2008)
• 'Challenging the Taboo: the Memory of West Germany's Terrorist Past in Andres Veiel's Black Box BRD (2001)',New Cinemas, 5.2, 2007
• 'The Return of "Undead" History: The West German Terrorist as Vampire and the Problem of "Normalizing" the Past in Margarethe von Trotta's Die bleierne Zeit (1981) and Christian Petzold's Die innere Sicherheit (2001)', in Stuart Taberner and Paul Cookes, eds., German Culture, Politics and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization (Rochester: Camden House, 2006)
• 'Von Trotta's The German Sisters and Petzold's The State I Am In: Discursive Boundaries in the Films of the New German Cinema to the Present day', Studies in European Cinema, 2.2, 2005

d) Online

           'The Future of Popular Geopolitics: Mega-Shark Cinematic Diplomacy', E-International Relations, 21 September, 2018.         

           'Transformers 4: China is using Hollywood to take on the world', The Conversation, 04 July, 2014.

d) Research Talks and Conference Presentations

• ‘Women at War with the State: german Cinema and the RAF’, Entrenched Narratives, University of Warwick, March 2024.
• 'Filmmaking, Cultural Diplomacy and the BRICS', Durban International & BRICS Film Festival, 26 July 2018.
• 'Hollywood, Orintalism(s), and Chinese Soft Power', Beijing Foreign Studies University, 21 May 2018.
• ‘”High sein, frei sein, aber muss Terror dabei sein?” Gerd Koenen’s notion of the "red decade" and recent German film’, at '1968 and All That: Legacies of a Revolution', University of Birmingham, 14 March 2018.
• 'Hollywood, Geopolitics, and Chinese Soft Power', Cinema, Soft Power, and Geopolitical Change, University of Leeds, 19-21 June 2017.
• 'Hollywood, Orientalism, and Chinese Soft Power', Centre for World Cinemas Research Seminar Series, University of Leeds, 24 November 2014.
• ‘Terrorism in Contemporary German Film’ at ECRF, Edge Hill University, 16-18 July 2012.
• ‘Left-Wing Terrorism and German Cinema’, at the Film and Television Aesthetics Research Seminar Series, University of Hertfordshire, 2 May 2012.
• ‘From Baader to Prada: Memory and Myth in Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex’, at Re-Visioning Terrorism: An International and Interdisciplinary Conference, Purdue University, 08-10 September, 2011
• ‘The Transnational Orientation of The Baader Meinhof Complex’, at Representing and Experiencing Transnationalism: Germanic Languages and Cultures in Global Perspective, UW-Madison, 25-26 March 2010.
• ‘From Baader to Prada: The Shifting Representation of Urban Terrorism in German Cinema’, at the Goethe Institute, Manchester, 2009.
• ‘Hans Weingartner's The Edukators: Political Forum or Cinematic Site of Mass Diversion?’, at the University of Swansea, 2009
• 'Have the Best Ideas Stood the Test of Time? Negotiating the Legacy of '68 in Hans Weingartner's Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The Edukators', at Memories of 1968: International Perspectives, University of Leeds, 17-18 April 2008.
• 'Communicative Memory and Taboo in Andres Veiel's Black Box BRD, at Conference of University Teachers of German in Great Britain and Ireland (CUTG), Leeds, 24-26 March 2006.
• 'The West German terrorist as Vampire', at Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism, Cardiff School of European Studies, 15-17 September 2005.
• 'Von Trotta's The German Sisters and Petzold's The State I Am In; Discursive Boundaries in the Films of the New German Cinema to the Present day', at the European Cinema Research Forum (ECRF), University of Northumbria, 9-11 July 2004.

Impact, community and teaching enhancement activities

Public presentations, teaching enhancement and impact engagement activities include: 

Summer 2014: I devised and led a project to develop a Centre for World Cinemas / Leeds International Film Festival postgraduate internship for the new MRes in World Cinemas.

04 July 2014: a short article based on my recent work about Hollywood, Orientalism, and Chinese soft power was published in the online newspaper The Conversation (see 'research' above for a link to the article).

27 January 2014: a talk delivered to postgraduates titled 'How to Get Published' at the event 'Publishing in the Visual Arts'

November 2013: participation in a roundtable discussion of 'catalyst films' as part of the Leeds International Film Festival.

Autumn 2009: a talk given to the Manchester Goethe Institut about the representation of urban terrorism in German-language films.

Autumn, 2008: a talk given to the Leeds Anglo-German Society about the representation of urban terrorism in German-language films.

Conferences organised

• Cinema, Soft Power, and Geopolitical Change, University of Leeds, 19-21 June 2017 (co-organiser)
• German Screen Studies Network, 'Translating Stars: German Cinema in Transnational Context', University of Leeds, September, 2014. 
• German Cinema since 2000, Postgraduate symposium, University of Leeds, November 2009
• New Waves and New Cinemas, Leeds, 8th July 2006. For further details visit http://www.german.leeds.ac.uk/update/newwaves.htm
• European Cinema Research Forum, Leeds, July 2005 (co-organiser)

Other activities

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)

• Soft Power, Cinema and the BRICS

Qualifications

• PhD
• MA
• BA
• University of Leeds Teaching Award (ULTA-2)

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Student education

I teach extensively on the German and Film Studies programmes.

Research groups and institutes

• German
• Cinema and Television
• Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures
• Digital cultures
• Digital Cultures
• Popular culture