André Hammelmann

•    Aesthetic experience 
•    Cinematic realism
•    Popular culture

Dissertation title

The Redemption of Physical Reality: Films from the Berlin School through the Lens of Siegfried Kracauer's Material Aesthetics

Thesis synopsis

In my thesis, I investigated the contemporaneity of Siegfried Kracauer’s conception of cinema, focussing particularly on his Theory of Film (1960), in which he argues for the medium’s peculiar ability to redeem physical reality. Films from the Berlin School, a group of contemporary German directors, whose material approaches to reality striked me as being closely related to Kracauer’s ideas, served as case studies. My research was funded by the School of Arts and Humanities.

In 2007, I obtained a Magister [Master of Arts] in European Ethnology and Teaching German as a Foreign Language from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Before starting the PhD at King's, I worked as a German teacher at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Mexico (2007-2010) and CASA, a private language school in Bremen, Germany (2010-2011).

Teaching at King's

German Language Core Module I
German Language Core Module II
German Language Core Module III
One Hundred Years of German Cinema