Haakenson 1
ThomasOdell Haakenson
______
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities / 3310 Fremont Avenue SouthDepartment of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature / Apartment No. 301
235 Nicholson Hall; 216 Pillsbury Drive South East / Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408 U.S.A.
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0195 U.S.A.
Telephone (Main Office): 612.626.8278 / Telephone: 651.894.2894
Email:
Education
Ph. D.2006University of Minnesota—Minneapolis, Minnesota
Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
Major: Program in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society
Minors: German; History of Science and Technology
Dissertation: Grotesque Visions: Art, Science, and Visual Culture in
Early-Twentieth-Century Germany
M.A.1999University of Minnesota—Minneapolis, Minnesota
Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
Major: Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society
Minor: German
Master’s Papers: “Troubling Experience” & “Revisiting ‘Entartete’ Kunst”
B.A.1995Drake University—Des Moines, Iowa (cum laude; College Honors)
Majors: German, Economics, and International Relations
Minor: Political Science
Emphases: International Political Economy; European Studies
Publications
“’The Merely Illusory Paradise of Habits’: Salomo Friedländer, Walter Benjamin, and the Grotesque,”
New German Critique (Special Issue on Dada) (forthcoming: Issue No. 106, Fall 2008).
“Science, Art, and the Question of the Visible: Rudolf Virchow, Hannah Höch, and ‘Immediate Visual
Perception.’” Legacies of Modernism: Art and Politics in Northern Europe, 1890-1950, eds. Patrizia McBride, Richard W. McCormick, and Monika Zagar (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 93-106.
“Visual Objectivity and Hannah Höch’s Impossible Objects,” The Rutgers Art Review 21 (2005): 38-56.
with Anne Mihan, “Standard Deviation—Modernity and the Reign of Normalism: An Interview with
Jürgen Link,” Cabinet 15 (Fall 2005): 83-87.
Book Projects
Grotesque Visions: Art, Science, and Perception in Early-Twentieth-Century Germany.
Making Sense: Cinema, Science, and the Education of Perception.
Other Projects:
Sexual Reorientations: Fifteen Odd Years of Queer Theory (journal special issue with Dr. Kevin Amidon
and Dr. David James Prickett) (proposed for The Journal of Homosexuality).
“No Time for Reflecting: Mediating Heaven in the Work of Douglas Sirk and Todd Haynes,” Cinema Journal (under review).
”’The Department Store of Love’: The Fetish as Anthropological and Epistemological Object,” October
(under review).
“Adorno, Perception, and Aesthetic Experience,” New Formations (under revision).
“The Return of the Grotesque” (intended for The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism).
“Unmaking Bodies: David Cronenberg, Chris Cunningham, and the Grotesque in Film and Video.”
“Photomontage as a Theory of Difference: Hannah Höch and Kara Walker in Comparison”HH
Awards & Honors
2003 – 2004Social Science Research Council / German Studies Association - Berlin Program
for Advanced German and European Studies Fellow of the Freie Universität
2002 – 2004Pre-Doctoral Fellow of the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte 2004 German Historical Institute Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar (Tübingen)
2003Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute, Center for German and European Studies
(University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-
Univeristät (Munich)
2003United States of America Fulbright Fellow (extension)
2003Modern Language Association Travel Grant
2002 – 2003United States of America Fulbright Fellow
2002Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes (Berlin, Germany)
2000 – 2001Harold Leonard Memorial Fellowship in Film Study
2000Foreign Language Area Studies Summer Fellowship
2000 – 2001Foreign Language Area Studies Academic Year Fellowship
2000Pre-Doctoral Fellow - Northwestern University School of Speech Institute
1999 – 2000Stipendiat der Studienstiftung des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin
1999Foreign Language Area Studies Summer Fellowship
1999 – 2000Foreign Language Area Studies Academic Year Fellowship
1999Frank Hirschbach Research Abroad Travel Grant
1997 – 1998Council of Graduate Students Graduate Student Leadership Award
Reviews
“Why Heidegger? Why Now?: A Collective Review: Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Heidegger and the
Politics of Poetry; Alison Ross, The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy; Parvis Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy; Mark Sinclair, Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Work of Art: Poiesis in Being; and Ian Rory Owen, Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud, Husserl and Heidegger.” H-Net Reviews(Forthcoming: May 2008).
“David Michael Kleinberg-Levin, Gestures of Ethical Life: Reading Hölderin’s Question of Measure After Heidegger (Stanford UP, 2005).” H-Net Reviews(August 2007).
“Frederic J. Schwartz. Blind Spots: Critical Theory and the History of Art in Twentieth-Century,”
Germany (Yale UP, 2005).” H-Net Reviews (February 2006).
“Gerald Izenberg. Modernism and Masculinity: Mann, Wedekind, Kandinsky Through World War I
(U of Chicago P, 2003).” German Studies Review (February 2005).
“Nigel Rothfels. Savages and Beasts. The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins UP, 2002).” German Studies Review (February 2005).
“H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl, eds. Worldly Provincialisms: German Anthropology in the Age
of Empire (U of Michigan P, 2003).” German Studies Review (February 2005).
“Michael Hau. The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930 (U of
Chicago P, 2003).” German Studies Review (February 2005).
“Andrew Zimmerman. Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (U of Chicago
P, 2001).” History Compass (6 November 2003).
“Janet Ward’s Weimar Surfaces: Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany (U of California P,
2001).” Cultural Critique 52 (Fall 2002): 271-75.
“Dina Iordanova’s Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media.” Austrian Studies
Newsletter 14.2 (Spring 2002): 13-14.
with Cecily Marcus. “There’s No Place Like Home: On William J. Bennett’s The Death of Outrage.”
Cultural Critique 43 (Fall 1999): 139-45.
“The 9th Annual L/G/B/T International Film Festival” (multiple film reviews). The Minnesota Daily
(27 September 1998): special insert.
Other Publications and Appearances
Outstanding in the Field, Minneapolis Public Television, Terrance Griep (host) (11 June 2007).
with Marynel Ryan. “Opening and Reopening a Gate.” The Funnel: Newsmagazine of theGerman-
American Fulbright Commission 39.1 (Winter 2002): 36-40.
“Reflections on Changes in the Classroom as a Result of September 11.” From Composition With
Gladness: Newsletter of the Composition Program (December 2001): 4-6.
“Boys’ Night Out.” Lavender Magazine (column from October 1998 – July 1999).
Community Service
2007 – 2008P & A Liaison, Dept. of Cultural Studies & Comp. Literature, Univ. of Minn.
2007 – 2008Adjunct Representative – Faculty Senate, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
2002Search Committee, Vice Provost for Multiculturalism and Academic Affairs
2002Student Service Fees Task Force Implementation Committee
2001 – 2002Student Service Fees Committee
Teaching Experience
August 2007 – PresentAdjunct Lecturer, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
September 2006 – PresentAdjunct Lecturer, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
August 2006 – PresentAdjunct Lecturer, The Institute of Production & Recording, Minneapolis
January 2006 – August 20006Adjunct Lecturer, University of Phoenix, Twin Cities Campus
January 2006 – May 2006Adjunct Lecturer, University of Wisconsin – River Falls
March 2004 – Sept. 2004Visiting Lecturer, Humboldt Universität – Berlin, Germany
September 1999 – May 2006Graduate Instructor, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
September 1998 – May 1999Teaching Assistant, University of Minnesota
Selected Courses— Film and Media Studies
Introduction to Cinema and Media Culture
Introduction to Popular American Culture
The Art and History of Cinema
Sexuality through Film
Selected Courses—Cultural Studies
The Art and Science of the Grotesque
Sexuality and Culture
The Body and the Politics of Representation
Issues in Cultural Pluralism
Selected Courses—German Language and Culture
Introduction to the German Language
Degeneracy and the Weimar Republic
Reading East German Culture (Guest Lecturer)
Culture of Fear?: U.S. Media and Politics (Humboldt Universität—Berlin, Germany)
Selected Courses— English and Communication Studies
Composition: The Meaning of the University
Introduction to Effective Written Communication
Introduction to Research and Information Utilization
Essentials of College Writing
Teaching Assistantships
Introduction to Cultural Studies (Assistant to Professor Robin (Robert) Brown, Jr.)
Introduction to Cultural Studies (Assistant to Professor Gary Thomas)
Introduction to Film Studies (Assistant to Professor Robert Silberman)
Introduction to Literature (Assistant to Professor Jeffrey Falla)
Visions of Nature: The Natural World and Political Thought (Assistant to Professor Phil Regal)
Presentations
Moderator, “Fearfactor—Funfactor,” Confronting Danger, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (April 7,
2006).
“Laughing Matters,” Colloquium, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University
of Minnesota (8 February 2006).
Moderator, “Knowing Otherwise: Theorizing Productions of Thought,” Out of Time: Theorizing Culture
and the Political, Minneapolis, Minnesota (21 October 2005).
“’Beyond the Surface of Things’: The Material Limits of the Media in Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows and Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven,” German Society for American Studies / Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien, Frankfurt, German (19 May 2005).
“Celluloid, Real and Representation: Til Brugman’s ‘Department Store of Love,’” German Studies Association, Washington, D.C. (9 October 2004).
“Sexuality and Its Others,” Theories of the Other Seminar, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (6 October 2004).
“Optics and Subjects: The Development of Anthropology in Berlin,” German Historical Institute
Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar (Universität Tübingen) (28 April – 1 May 2004).
“From the Album to the Archive: Vision in Early Berlin Anthropology” (revised), Berlin Program
for Advanced German and European Studies (Berlin, Germany) (11 February 2004).
“The Real Zelluloid Closet: Til Brugmann’s Department Store of Love,” London College of
Music & Media (London, England) (6 February 2004).
“Ist die Lehre und Ihre Wisseschaft Frei?: Zu Kevin Amidons ‘Eine feste Burg freien Denkens’: The
Biological Sciences Between Discipline and Public in the 1877-78 Haeckel-Virchow Controversy.”
Commentary to Kevin Amidon’s “’Lebesnwerth’ and ‘Lebenszweck’: Aesthetic Values and Race in
German Biology,” Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies (12 November 2003).
“Optics and Objects in Early Berlin Anthropology,” Forschungsstelle für Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Universität Zürich (Zurich, Switzerland) (26 November 2003).
“From the Album to the Archive: Vision in Early Berlin Anthropology,” Max-Planck-Institut für
Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin, Germany) (30 September 2003).
“The Architectonics of Public Science: Rudolf Virchow’s Pathological Museum,” German Studies
Association Conference (20 September 2003).
“The Uncultured Eye: Scientific Knowledge, Visual Culture, and German National Policy 1871-
1933,” Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich, Germany) (4 August 2003).
“The Eternal Eye: Anthropology, Photomontage, and Photographic Representation,” Max-Planck-
Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin, Germany) (12 July 2003).
Commentary to Scott Curtis’s “Science’s Cinematic Method: Motion Pictures and Scientific
Research in Imperial Germany,” Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin,
Germany) (3 July 2003).
“Science and the Public: The Case of Rudolf Virchow and His Pathological Museum,” Fulbright
Program (Berlin, Germany) (24 March 2003).
“The Architectonics of Public Science: Rudolf Virchow’s Pathological Museum,” Mephistos 2003,
University of Wisconsin – Madison (8 March 2003).
“The Uncultured Eye: Life Sciences in the Context of German Modernisms,” Sixth Biennial
Minnesota Forum of the Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, University of Minnesota,
Twin Cities (26 April 2002).
“The Trouble with Love,” German Studies Graduate Student Conference, University of Wisconsin –
Madison (13 April 2002).
“Cultural Borderlands or Academic Battlefields? The Student Fees Fiasco from the Perspective of a
Native Informant,” Borderlands: Remapping Zones of Cultural Practice and Representation,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (30 March 2001).
“Love Parade, Hate Parade . . . , “ The Politics of Pop: Popular Culture in German Speaking
Countries, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (4 March 2001).
Moderator, Interpretation of Dreams/Dreams of Interpretation, University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities (7 October 2000).
“The Image and the Other: The ‘Aus einem ethnographischen Museum’ Photomontages of Hannah
Höch’,” German Studies Graduate Conference, University of Wisconsin – Madison (25 March 2000).
Moderator, The Politics of Pop in German Speaking Countries, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
(25 April 1999).
“The Question of Community in the Photomontages of Hannah Höch,” Reading Turn-of-the-
Century Culture At the Turn of the Century, University of California at Berkeley (27 February
1998).
“Dangerous Topics: Queer Theory, Cultural Studies, & Disciplinarity,” Articulating Conflicts in
Cultural Studies: Agency, Resistance, Social Change, University of Arizona, Tucson (25 February
1999).
Co-Organizer, How Queer Are We Here? Conference, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (April
24 – 26, 1998).
“Queer Theory and Cultural Studies,” Queer Theory Reading Group, University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities (13 October 1997).
Other Professional Experience
September 2006 – PresentWriting Workshop Facilitator – University of Phoenix, Minneapolis
June 2005 – October 2005 Project Liaison, Western Books on Asia, Thompson Gale Group
May 2005 – June 20005Integrated Faculty Certification, University of Phoenix—Twin Cities
June 2002 – August 2002Research Assistant to Professor Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Program in
the History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota,
Twin Cities
May 2002 – August 2002Intellectual Property Rights Research Assistant, Fish and Richardson
(law firm), Minneapolis, Minnesota
August 2001 – August 2002 Research Assistant to Professor Keya Ganguly, Department of
Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities
June 2000 – August 2001Research Assistant to Professor Timothy Brennan, Department of
English, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative
Literature, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
October 1998 – July 1999Contributing Writer, “Arts & Entertainment,” Lavender Magazine.
September 1998 – June 1999Editorial Assistant, Cultural Critique, senior editors: Professor
Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Professor John Mowitt, and Professor Keya
Ganguly
Undergraduate Advising
Projects:
Raven DeFilippo
Andrew Felicilda (senior thesis)
Eve Kodner (independent study)
Sara Miller (Suma thesis)
Sota Nakabachi (ithesis project / individually designed major )
Ben Noble (independent study)
Alex Wefel (University Research Partnership project)
Stephanie Williams
References:
Anne Arrignton
Austin Adams
Jessica Barber
Christine Eshelman
Andrew Felicilda
Melissa Getzkin
Amanda Holmberg
Elaine Johnson
Adam Laine
Molly McCoy
Angela Merritt
Lia Swope Mitchell
Madeleine Vasaly
Chelsee VonWald
Primary References
Keya Ganguly , Associate Professor (adviser)
Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
235 Nicholson Hall
216 Pillsbury Drive Street Southeast
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0195
Email:
Telephone: (612)-625-5871
Timothy A. Brennan, Professor
Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
204 Nicholson Hall
216 Pillsbury Drive Street South East
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0195
Email:
Telephone: (612)-626-1638
Arlene Teraoka, Professor and Associate Dean
Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
113 Johnston Hall
101 Pleasant Street South East
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0195
Email:
Telephone: (612)-624-9839
Patrizia C. McBride, Associate Professor
Department of German Studies
Cornell University
183 Goldwin Smith Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853-3201
Email:
Telephone: (607)-255-8323
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Professor
History of Science and Technology
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
123 Pillsbury Hall
310 Pillsbury Drive South East
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0195
Email:
Telephone: (612)-624-9368