Böcker av Katharina Rein

Gothic Cinema closes a gap in German-language film discourse: for the first time, the volume sheds light on a hitherto little-discussed film context. It considers Gothic Cinema as a form of unofficial historiography that allows a look not only at the history of film and its technique, but also at moral concepts, gender relations, collective fears or aesthetic currents. A delimitation and definition of the term and the central elements of the Gothic are followed by a comprehensive historical overview from 1896 to the present day. Three in-depth analyses of individual post-2015 gothic films and television series round out the review. On the one hand, the examples examined are representative in terms of typical elements, motifs or topoi, and on the other hand, they exhibit peculiarities and breaks that prove fruitful for a cultural and media studies investigation.

This book explores stage conjuring during its "golden age," from about 1860 to 1910. This study provides close readings highlighting four paradigmatic illusions of the time that stand in for different kinds of illusions typical of stage magic in the "golden age" and analyses them within their cultural and media-historical context: "Pepper's Ghost," the archetypical mirror illusion; "The Vanishing Lady," staging a teleportation in a time of a dizzying acceleration of transport; "the levitation," simulating weightlessness with the help of an extended steel machinery; and "The Second Sight," a mind-reading illusion using up-to-date communication technologies. These close readings are completed by writings focusing on visual media and expanding the scope backwards and forwards in time, roughly to 1800 and to 2000. This exploration will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.