Fellow of the Volkswagen Stiftung and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

December 2015 – August 2016

An Interdisciplinary Study of German Popular Festivals as Products and Expressions of Cultural Transfer

 

A. Dana Weber is currently working at a monograph on German Karl May festivals tentatively entitled Blood-Brothers and Peace Pipes. This study explores the historical emergence, performative features, and function of these events in contemporary German popular culture. Webers research is informed by folklore, performance, and film studies. In her academic articles, she analyzes ethnographic mannequins at the interface between performance concepts and Freud’s “uncanny;” Karl May festivals in light of Wagner’s “Festspiel” tenets; the historical trajectory of Native American characters on German theatre stages; and the dialogue of Quentin Tarantino’s recent films with Fritz Lang’s productions. Weber’s courses explore these and other topics, such as “gender and violence;” “heroes and tricksters;” “Germanic myths in modern popular culture;” “performances of alterity in theatre;” and “Native American fantasies in German culture.”

E-mail: adweber@zedat.fu-berlin.de