Dante Prado
Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Studies (PhD)
Research Topic
Laughter amidst wars and crises in German modernism
Kyle Frackman
Associate Professor
Research Classification
Research Interests
queer studies
German studies
media studies
history of sexuality
sexuality
sexuality studies
East Germany
film
Gender Studies
history of science
literature
Media
Media Types (Radio, Television, Written Press, etc.)
Scandinavia
Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs
Affiliations to Research Centres, Institutes & Clusters
Research Options
I am available and interested in collaborations (e.g. clusters, grants).
I am interested in and conduct interdisciplinary research.
I am interested in working with undergraduate students on research projects.
Recruitment
Master's students
Doctoral students
Postdoctoral Fellows
Any time / year round
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Graduate Student Supervision
Master's Student Supervision
Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.
Of matter and meaning: quantum entanglement and biological phantasy in psychoanalysis (2019)
This thesis offers a posthumanist reading of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories on body-ego and its somatic relations to the environment in Das Ich und das Es (The Ego and the Id), Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams), and Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Civilization and its Discontents). Agential Realism, a philosophy proposed by Karen Barad, builds on recent insights in quantum physics. Using Barad’s theory, I read bodies as “intra-actively” entangled with matter and meaning, so that the body-ego as “phenomenon” materializes from a co-constitutive subject position within relationships with others. Unlike interaction, where pre-existing entities meet, “intra-action” emphasizes the mutual constitution of entangled agencies. This approach allows re-centering the body in ego formation and the subject-object relations in psychoanalysis. Following Barad’s understanding that “knowing is a direct material engagement” (Meeting the Universe Halfway, 2007), this analysis offers novel paths to engage with Freud’s creative somatic materializations in the body. Posthumanist feminist philosophies are uniquely situated to elucidate the intra-activity of the unconscious as enlivened and productive. This “biological phantasy” (Wilson, Gut Feminism 2015) as both somatic and imaginary, constitutes a collective event through which body-ego emerges. Just as “matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers” (Barad), this material reworking provides a novel understanding of the creative relation of the Freudian body-ego with cultural phenomena and collective states. The proposed theory offers new perspectives on psychoanalysis through a new materialist lens when navigating the willful aberrations of bodily unruliness.
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Publications
- Coming Out (2022)
- Homemade Pornography and the Proliferation of Queer Pleasure in East Germany (2022)
Radical History Review, 2022 (142), 93-109 - "Du bist Nummer 55": Girls' Education, Mädchen in Uniform, and Social Responsibility (2019)
- “Du bist Nummer 55”: Girls’ education, Mädchen in uniform, and social responsibility (2019)
Seminar - A Journal of Germanic Studies, 55 (2), 110-127 - Based on a True Story: Tracking What Is Queer about German Queer Documentary (2018)
- Gender and Sexuality in East German Film (2018)
- Persistent Ambivalence: Theorizing Queer East German Studies (2018)
Journal of Homosexuality, - THE EAST GERMAN FILM COMING OUT (1989) AS MELANCHOLIC REFLECTION AND HOPEFUL PROJECTION (2018)
German Life and Letters, 71 (4), 452--472 - Finland, civil war and revolution, 1914–1918 [Encyclopedia article] (2017)
The University of British Columbia, - Justinian Jampol, ed. Beyond the Wall: Art and Artifacts from the GDRJustinian Jampol, ed. Beyond the Wall: Art and Artifacts from the GDR. Cologne: Taschen, 2014. 904 pp. US$150 (Hardcover). ISBN 978-3-8365-4885-4. (2017)
Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 53 (3), 305--307 - Review of Barbara Mennel. "The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature." (2017)
- To Be Gay in 1950s Zurich : [film review] (2016)
The University of British Columbia, - Classical Music in the German Democratic Republic (2015)
Camden House, - The Reality of the Body: Transgender, Transsexuality, and Truth in 'Romeos' (2015)
- A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA's Beethovens (2014)
- An other kind of home: Gender-sexual abjection, subjectivity, and the uncanny in literature and film (2014)
An other Kind of Home: Gender-Sexual Abjection, Subjectivity, and the Uncanny in Literature and Film, 9, 1-181 - Beethoven duet : a genius of our own: the GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens (2014)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. DEFA Film Library, - Book review: Cinema and social change in Germany and Austria edited by Gabrielle Mueller and James M. Skidmore (2014)
Johns Hopkins University Press, - Book review: Nordic Landscapes: Region and Belonging on the Northern Edge of Europe (2014)
The University of British Columbia, - Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria ed. by Gabrielle Mueller, James M. Skidmore (2014)
German Studies Review, 37 (1), 243--246 - Vor Ort: The Functions and Early Roots of German Regional Crime Fiction (2014)
- Coming Out of the Iron Closet : Contradiction in East German Gay History and Film (2013)
The University of British Columbia, - Book review: Enlightened War: German Theories and Cultures of Warfare from Frederick the Great to Clausewitz, edited by Elisabeth Krimmer and Patricia Anne Simpson (2012)
The University of British Columbia, - Book review: Von Kraftmenschen und Schwächlingen: Literarische Männlichkeitsentwürfe bei Lessing, Goethe, Schiller und Mozart by Martin Blawid. (2012)
The University of British Columbia, - Lola and Billy the Kid (2012)
- Lola and Billy the Kid [Film critique] (2012)
Intellect Books, - Return to Go (2012)
- Return to go [Film critique] (2012)
Intellect Books, - The Curious Case of the Turkish Drag Queen: Film and Social Justice Education in Advanced German (2012)
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), - Von Kraftmenschen und Schwachlingen. Literarische Mannlichkeitsentwurfe bei Lessing, Goethe, Schiller und Mozart. Von Martin Blawid. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. vi + 412 Seiten. 99,95. (2012)
Monatshefte, 104 (3), 428--430 - Von Kraftmenschen und Schwachlingen. Literarische Mannlichkeitsentwurfe bei Lessing, Goethe, Schiller und Mozart. Von Martin Blawid. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. vi + 412 Seiten. 99,95. (2012)
- Something Old, Something New (2011)
Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, - Something Old, Something New: Integrating Canonical Works in a German Studies Curriculum (2011)
Blackwell Publishing, - Book review: Schelling’s Dialogical Freedom Essay: Provocative Philosophy Then and Now by Bernard Freydberg. (2010)
The University of British Columbia, - Book review: Shadows of the Past: Austrian Literature of the Twentieth Century edited by Hans Schulte and Gerard Chapple. (2010)
The University of British Columbia, - Book review: The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy edited by Frederick C. Beiser. (2010)
The University of British Columbia, - Finland, Civil War and Revolution, 1914-1918 (2009)
The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, - The Abject of My Affection: 'Heimosexuality' in German Texts and Films (2009)
- German Literature (2008)
- German Literature [Encyclopedia article] (2008)
Greenwood Press, - Hirschfeld, Magnus [Encyclopedia article] (2008)
Greenwood Press, - Magnus Hirschfeld (2008)
- Richard von Krafft-Ebing (2008)
- Richard von Krafft-Ebing [Encyclopedia article] (2008)
Greenwood Press, - From Weimar to Christiania: German and Scandinavian Studies in Context (2007)
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