Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

In Framing Attention, Lutz Koepnick explores different concepts of the window—in both a literal and a figurative sense—as manifested in various visual forms in German culture from the nineteenth century to the present. He offers a new interpretation of how evolving ways of seeing have characterized and defined modernity.
 
Koepnick examines the role and representation of window frames in modern German culture—in painting, photography, architecture, and literature, on the stage and in public transportation systems, on the film screen and on television. He presents such frames as interfaces that negotiate competing visions of past and present, body and community, attentiveness and distraction. From Adolph Menzel's window paintings of the 1840s to Nam June Paik's experiments with television screens, from Richard Wagner's retooling of the proscenium stage to Adolf Hitler's use of a window as a means of political self-promotion, Framing Attention offers a theoretically incisive understanding of how windows shape and reframe the way we see the world around us and our place within it.
 
Errata: Chapter 2, "Richard Wagner and the Framing of Modern Empathy"
Credit for two translations and for a seminal discussion of empathy theory was inadvertently omitted by the author. The reader should have been directed to two essays by Juliet Koss: "Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls," The Art Bulletin 85, no. 4 (December 2003): 724–45 and "On the Limits of Empathy," The Art Bulletin 88, no. 1 (March 2006): 139–57.

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Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

In Framing Attention, Lutz Koepnick explores different concepts of the window—in both a literal and a figurative sense—as manifested in various visual forms in German culture from the nineteenth century to the present. He offers a new interpretation of how evolving ways of seeing have characterized and defined modernity.
 
Koepnick examines the role and representation of window frames in modern German culture—in painting, photography, architecture, and literature, on the stage and in public transportation systems, on the film screen and on television. He presents such frames as interfaces that negotiate competing visions of past and present, body and community, attentiveness and distraction. From Adolph Menzel's window paintings of the 1840s to Nam June Paik's experiments with television screens, from Richard Wagner's retooling of the proscenium stage to Adolf Hitler's use of a window as a means of political self-promotion, Framing Attention offers a theoretically incisive understanding of how windows shape and reframe the way we see the world around us and our place within it.
 
Errata: Chapter 2, "Richard Wagner and the Framing of Modern Empathy"
Credit for two translations and for a seminal discussion of empathy theory was inadvertently omitted by the author. The reader should have been directed to two essays by Juliet Koss: "Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls," The Art Bulletin 85, no. 4 (December 2003): 724–45 and "On the Limits of Empathy," The Art Bulletin 88, no. 1 (March 2006): 139–57.

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Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

by Lutz Koepnick
Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture

by Lutz Koepnick

eBook

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Overview

In Framing Attention, Lutz Koepnick explores different concepts of the window—in both a literal and a figurative sense—as manifested in various visual forms in German culture from the nineteenth century to the present. He offers a new interpretation of how evolving ways of seeing have characterized and defined modernity.
 
Koepnick examines the role and representation of window frames in modern German culture—in painting, photography, architecture, and literature, on the stage and in public transportation systems, on the film screen and on television. He presents such frames as interfaces that negotiate competing visions of past and present, body and community, attentiveness and distraction. From Adolph Menzel's window paintings of the 1840s to Nam June Paik's experiments with television screens, from Richard Wagner's retooling of the proscenium stage to Adolf Hitler's use of a window as a means of political self-promotion, Framing Attention offers a theoretically incisive understanding of how windows shape and reframe the way we see the world around us and our place within it.
 
Errata: Chapter 2, "Richard Wagner and the Framing of Modern Empathy"
Credit for two translations and for a seminal discussion of empathy theory was inadvertently omitted by the author. The reader should have been directed to two essays by Juliet Koss: "Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls," The Art Bulletin 85, no. 4 (December 2003): 724–45 and "On the Limits of Empathy," The Art Bulletin 88, no. 1 (March 2006): 139–57.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801891892
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 01/15/2007
Series: Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 312
File size: 4 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Lutz Koepnick is a professor of German, film, and media studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Framing Attention
1. Menzel's Rear Window
2. Richard Wagner and the Framing of Modern Empathy
3. Early Cinema and the Windows of Empire
4. Underground Visions
5. Windows 33/45
6. Fluxus Television
7. The Nation's New Windows
Epilogue: "Berliner Fenster"
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Irene Kacandes

A well-researched, original argument. These case studies tell a fascinating story of how and why our current ways of seeing have evolved over time. Any scholar of the visual (specifically of film, television, and architecture) will want to read this book, whether or not they have studied or have current interest in Germany. It should also be required reading for students of German cultural studies—it’s a different Germany we feel we know after reading the particular synthesis and getting to know the historical characters Koepnick brings together.

Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College, author of Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion

From the Publisher

A well-researched, original argument. These case studies tell a fascinating story of how and why our current ways of seeing have evolved over time. Any scholar of the visual (specifically of film, television, and architecture) will want to read this book, whether or not they have studied or have current interest in Germany. It should also be required reading for students of German cultural studies—it’s a different Germany we feel we know after reading the particular synthesis and getting to know the historical characters Koepnick brings together.
—Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College, author of Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion

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