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"Based on a True Story:" American Melodrama and Cultural Analysis

This blog was initiated by Sandy Flitterman-Lewis’ talk about Douglas Sirk’s
and Todd Haynes’ melodramas as well as by her commentary on Sirk’s
movie Battle Hymn during her stay at the University of Cologne in June
2021, which was hosted by the University’s Auerbach center for Advanced
Studies. It is meant as a platform for the further discussion, the
development but also the potential problematics of a future feminist poetics
and politics ‘in the light of melodrama’ that was evoked by Sandy
Flitterman-Lewis.’

All modes of contribution are welcome, from comments about Sandy’s talks
or questions it has raised, to discussions of the project itself, ideas about
specific moving-image artifacts, discussions of affect theories, of the
relation between affect and politics, or of specific melodramatisms and
melodramatizations in American culture.

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