Elisabeth Bronfen

Elisabeth Bronfen(born 23 April 1958 inMunich) is a Swiss/German/American literary and cultural critic and academic. She is a professor emerita and former chairholder forEnglish literatureat theUniversity of Zurichas well as a global distinguished professor atNew York University.Her research interests include19th- and20th-centuryAmerican andBritish literature,gender studies,psychoanalysisas well as the intersection and interaction between differentcultural media.

Elisabeth Bronfen in 2013

Academic career

Elisabeth Bronfen studied German, English andComparative literatureatRadcliffe CollegeandHarvard.From 1985 until 1992, she worked as an assistant at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munichand wrote her doctorate onDorothy Richardson'sPilgrimagenovels as well as her habilitationOver Her Dead Body(1992). Bronfen held a chair at the University of Zurich from 1993 to 2023.

Works

InOver Her Dead Body(1992), Bronfen presents death as a fundamental deficit that is often negotiated over female bodies (be they dead or alive) inWestern societies,citingWuthering Heights,Frankenstein,andVertigo.The literary and/or visual representation of death can therefore be read as a symptom ofwestern culture,in which the female body epitomizes theOtherwhose death is imagined culturally.

InThe Knotted Subject(1998), Bronfen relates the "elusive, protean, and enigmatic psychosomatic disorder"ofhysteriato cultural works byAnn Raddcliffe,Anne Sexton,Alfred Hitchcock,David Cronenberg,andCindy Sherman.In her analysis, the humannavelserves as ametaphorfor both connection and detachment that is linked to the eponymous knotted subject of the hysteric because it too stems from a knot.

Home in Hollywood(1999/2004) is an analysis of the portrayal ofpsychological processesin film classics such asRebecca,The Wizard of Oz,andThe Searchers.In particular, Bronfen traces the depiction of theFreudianUncannyin these films. Her main thesis is that a "knowledge of the uncanniness of existence"remains visible in these movies despite their attempts of making sense of reality by giving the viewers a metaphorical home in the cinematic world.

InSpecters of War(2012), Bronfen analyses howHollywood cinemaandAmerican televisioncome to terms withUS military history.From the "unfinished business"ofcivil warinGone with the WindandGangs of New Yorkto the "choreography of battle"inSaving Private RyanandBand of Brothers,Bronfen investigates the parallels between military and cinematic spectacle.

InNight Passages(2008/2013), Bronfen traces night as a trope fromWilliam Shakespearethrough19th-century realismtofilm noirand links thenocturnalto theprimordial darknessthat existed before the advent of inwestern culture’s "mythicnarratives. "

Mad Men, Death and the American Dream(2015) is an analysis ofMatthew Weiner’s award-winning TV showMad Men.According to Bronfen, the show not only successfully revives the past, but also comments on the state of the US nation and the role of theAmerican Dreamin the 20th century.

In 2018, Elisabeth Bronfen's collection of essays invisual cultureCrossmappings(2009) appeared in English. Therein, Bronfen proposes a reading method of the same name that is based on mapping andcomparingformal aspects of cultural texts such ascharacter constellationsor political themes. According to Bronfen, this method allows for new insights into both the earlier and the later text. Rolf Löchel calls crossmapping acomparative methodthat not only uncoversintertextualitiesbut also carves out similar concerns of texts from different media such as literature, cinema, television and painting.Amongst others, Bronfen crossmapsCharlotte Perkins Gilman’s novellaThe Yellow Wallpaperwith thephotographic oeuvreofFrancesca Woodman,pop artwithBaz Luhrmann’sShakespeare adaptionRomeo + Juliet,as well asShakespeare’sHenriadwithDavid Simon’sThe Wire.In herteaching,Elisabeth Bronfen has further crossmappedMacbethwithBeau Willimon’sHouse of Cardsand traced the rewritings ofA Midsummer Night's DreaminHollywoodfromMax Reinhardt’s1935 adaptionviaGeorge Cukor’sThe Philadelphia StoryandHoward Hawks’The Big SleeptoSusan Seidelman’sDesperately Seeking Susan.

Select bibliography

• Death and Representation(1993). Edited by Bronfen and Sarah W. Goodwin. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press.ISBN9780801846274.
• Over her Dead Body(1992). Manchester:Manchester University Press.ISBN9780719038273.
• The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents(1998). Princeton:Princeton University Press.ISBN9780691636849.
• Dorothy Richardson's Art of Memory: Space, Identity, Text(1999). Manchester:Manchester University Press.ISBN9780719083266.
• Feminist Consequences(2000). Edited by Bronfen and Misha Kavka. New York:Columbia University Press.ISBN9780231117043.
• Home in Hollywood: The Imaginary Geography of Cinema(2004). New York:Columbia University Press.ISBN9780231121767.
• Specters of War: Hollywoods Engagement with Military Conflict(2012). New Brunswick:Rutgers University Press.ISBN9780813553979.
• Night Passages: Philosophy, Literature, and Film(2013). Translated by Bronfen and David Brenner. New York:Columbia University Press.ISBN9780231147989.
• Gothic Renaissance: A Reassessment(2014). Edited by Bronfen and Beate Neumeier. Manchester:Manchester University Press.ISBN9780719088636.
• Mad Men: Death and the American Dream(2016). Zürich: Diaphanes.ISBN9783037345504.
• Crossmappings: On Visual Culture(2018). London:I.B. Tauris.ISBN978-1-78831-107-6.
• Obsessed: The Cultural Critic’s Life in the Kitchen.(2019). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.ISBN978-1-9788-0363-3.
• Serial Shakespeare: An infinite variety of appropriations in American TV drama(2020). Manchester: Manchester University Press.ISBN978-1-5261-4231-3.