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Cultivating Audiences: Filmbildung, Moral Education, and the Public Sphere in Germany by Susanne B. Unger A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in The University of Michigan 2011 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Alaina M Lemon, Chair Professor Andrew J Shryock Associate Professor Johannes von Moltke Assistant Professor Zeynep D Gursel Susanne B. Unger © 2011 All rights reserved Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been completed without the help and support of many people. I thank the many individuals across Germany who allowed me into their lives while I conducted my ethnographic fieldwork. While I am not able to reveal your real names, I thank all of you for giving me an opportunity to spend time with you, get to know you, and to learn from you. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, I have been fortunate to have received guidance and support from a number of fabulous scholars and mentors. Alaina Lemon has been an insightful, knowledgeable, supportive, and truly inspirational advisor. She encouraged me to pursue this research topic at a time when I was not yet able to fully articulate my research interests, and gave me the headspace and the guidance to develop a research project that continues to engage and intrigue me. She patiently helped me reframe and hone my research questions until I found them satisfactory. I am thankful for her unfailing support, her thoughtful and consistent feedback, and her ability to help me discover new aspects of my research. Andrew Shryock has been an insightful, supportive, and enthusiastic mentor throughout my graduate student years. His intellectual curiosity and his ability and willingness to listen have helped me to better articulate my research interests over time, and continue to inspire me. ii Zeynep Gursel joined my dissertation committee shortly after I had returned from my fieldwork, and has been a knowledgeable, supportive and dedicated committee member ever since. Her feedback and suggestions have been eye-opening, and have helped me think about my research in new ways. Johannes von Moltke not only motivated me to conduct dissertation research on a film-related topic, he also helped me think about my research from the perspective of German Studies and Film Studies throughout my graduate career. I greatly appreciate his openness and genuine interest in anthropological perspectives on audiences, and his thoughtful and encouraging feedback on my writing. Zeynep Gursel, Liz Roberts, and Ruth Behar shared valuable writing tips with me when I began to write my dissertation. My thinking and writing have benefitted from participating in the University of Michigan‘s Linguistic Anthropology Laboratory and the University of Michigan-University of Chicago's yearly Michicagoan Graduate Student Conference in Linguistic Anthropology. Susan Gal, Judith Irvine, John Lucy, Bruce Mannheim, Barb Meek, and Michael Silverstein generously shared their knowledge and suggestions with me, and guided me toward relevant theoretical approaches. Walter Armbrust‘s mini course on Egyptian cinema inspired me to think about anthropological perspectives on movie audiences. Debra Spitulnik Vidali offered insightful comments as a discussant on our panel on audiences and publics at the 2009 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Gregory Starrett and Jed Esty provided helpful literature suggestions at just the right time. Laurie Marx deserves many thanks for her competent and enthusiastic support of the graduate students in our department. Her knowledge of various bureaucratic details, iii her wisdom, and her irresistible sense of humor made all the difference. I also thank Darlinda Flanigan-Dascola for her competent and kind support of the graduate student instructors in our department. Nancy Perez deserves a big thank you for calmly and cheerfully formatting my dissertation to fit the University of Michigan‘s requirements. During my last year of writing this dissertation, I was the editorial assistant to Andrew Shryock and David Akin at the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH). Their commitment to the journal, their integrity, their hard work, and their pride in the journal are contagious, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to work with them. Communicating with authors and reviewers from all over the world as well as with the members of CSSH‘s Editorial Committee offered a wonderful counterpoint to writing a dissertation because it allowed me to catch glimpses of other scholars‘ works in progress. The CSSH office became my intellectual home as well as my physical home for many long nights and weekends of dissertation writing. Writing the dissertation would have been a much lonelier process if it had not been for intellectual and emotional support from friends and colleagues across the world. Special thanks go to friends and readers at the University of Michigan and elsewhere who provided helpful comments on grant proposals, chapter drafts, and conference papers throughout my graduate career: Andrew Babson, Elana Buch, Jonathan Glasser, Kate Graber, Laura Heinemann, Margarita Huayhua, Claire Insel, Hemanth Kadambi, Jonathan Larson, Sonja Luehrmann, Maria Alejandra Perez, and Alice Weinreb. Thank you to all of my friends who either inspired me by finishing your dissertations before me or who reminded me that there was a life outside of the dissertation, or both: Anna Babel, Shannon Bankovic, Laura Brown, Anna Cichopek- iv Gajraj, Jason Duvall and Melissa Francis, Sara Feldman, Emine Fisek, Henrike Florusbosch, Susan Frekko, Anna Genina, Karen Hébert, Randy Hicks, Ema Grama Neamtu, Davorka Radovcic, Xochitl Ruiz, and Cecilia Tomori. Laura Brown faithfully and enthusiastically read many versions of many of my drafts, ranging from my first drafts to my penultimate dissertation drafts. Her astute, honest, and kind feedback has always been very helpful. Tam Perry read chapter drafts at short notice and with good cheer, providing helpful feedback and a healthy perspective on writing and life in general. Laura Heinemann has been a wonderful friend and colleague from the very beginning. She has been a continuous source of encouragement and support from afar. Graduate school would not have been the same without her, just as Ann Arbor has not been the same without her and Chris Weber. Sigrid Lium has been a loyal friend for many years, and I especially thank her for her friendship and support during the last months of finishing the dissertation. Last but not least, I want to thank my parents, Lioba and Ulrich Unger, for all they have taught me, for supporting me, and for encouraging me to follow my own path. Many thanks to my sister, Corinna Unger, for all her support, encouragement, and for her great sense of humor. Hilde Vanhonacker and Johan Deconinck, along with Pieter and Jochen, offered confidence and cheerful encouragement from afar. Wouter Deconinck has been a wonderfully supportive and inspirational presence in my life throughout all these years. He has been an encouraging, loving, and infinitely patient companion during my years of coursework, during our respective dissertation research endeavors, and while I wrote my dissertation. I thank him for all his encouragement and help, and feel fortunate to share my life with him. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. ii Chapter One: Film Competence, Film Literacy, and Film Education .................................1 Chapter Two: The History of Film Education Debates in Germany, 1909-2009 ..............32 Chapter Three: The Institutionalization of Film Education ...............................................66 Chapter Four: Education and Entertainment: Performing Democratic Citizenship at the Movies..............................................................................................................................107 Chapter Five: ―A Victim Always Dies Alone‖: The Politics of Filmmaking, Aesthetics, and Pedagogy from the Perspective of the Filmmakers...................................................141 Chapter Six: ―Film is an Instrument for Creating Social Relations‖: Filmmaking, Aesthetics, and Pedagogy from the Perspective of the Teachers .....................................177 Appendix ..........................................................................................................................225 References ........................................................................................................................228 vi Chapter One Film Competence, Film Literacy, and Film Education Shortly after I had arrived in Germany in October 2006 to conduct dissertation fieldwork on film education, the newly founded federal Filmkompetenzagentur (Film Competence Agency) organized a large national congress on Filmbildung (film education).1 The congress was held at a large movie theater inside Berlin‘s bustling Potsdamer Platz, a public square located in the heart of the reunified city. Formerly divided by the Berlin Wall, the square was rebuilt in the late 1990s by a number of international architects and investors and now includes a major train station, several international hotels, a shopping arcade, a casino, a film museum, and the headquarters of Berlin‘s annual international film festival, Berlinale. I was excited about this opportunity to catch a first glimpse of

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