David Levin
Office: Weiboldt 122
Email: dlevin@uchicago.edu
Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Studies, Committees on Cinema & Media Studies and Theater & Performance Studies, and the College
Education:
Ph.D. in German from the University of California, Berkeley
Background:
I received my undergraduate at Brown in class of 82. Then I worked for awhile in Germany in opera and ballet as a dramaturge, commercially at the Frankfort Opera. Then went to Bramen Opera. Then went to Berkeley after graduate school. I studied in the English department in an interdisciplinary masters program in English. Then moved to the German department while I was at Berkley. Then went back to Germany for a couple more years to work again at the Frankfort Opera and the Frankfort Ballet as a dramaturg. Then went back to Berkley and had a job lined up at the Stuttgart Opera as a dramaturg and decided I would apply for a couple of academic jobs that seemed particularly interesting to me. But since I had a job in opera production I wasn't all that committed to doing academic work. I ended up taking a job at Columbia University in New York, where I started in 1992 as an assistant professor in German, Theatre, and Gender Studies. There is a Ph.D. program in theatre, and a program in Gender studies at Columbia, so I was in those three faculties. And then I was here as a visitor in 1997 for a quarter, and then had to decide basically where to go; stay at Columbia, go to Ann Arbor or come here. And decided to come here which I did in Fall of '98. So I've been here going on 10 years, almost 10 years. And came here in German department, Cinema and Media Studies. I then was one of the people interested in trying to explore the possibilities in creating a program in theatre and performance- which was launched a couple of years ago, of which I've been chairing; at this point housed in interdisciplinary studies in humanities.
My home department is Germanic Studies. I am in the core faculty in Cinema and Media Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies. My work is on the intersection of opera and film and theatre and performance in the 21st century. I've also continued to alternate between doing academic work and working in opera production. So most recently having done a production at Lyric Opera- an opera that William Hokum the composer did which was an adaptation of a film by Robert Altman. Then Altman came and staged an operadic version of his film which was called A Wedding and that was two years ago. Last year I was in Berlin for the year, and now since the beginning of this quarter I've been back.
What type of student would benefit working with you:
That is for the students to say rather than for me. I've certainly taught courses that intersect with the work of Jewish Studies. I taught in particular a course on trying to apply some pressure to this question of representablity of the Holocaust. Trying to explore the certain generic conventions and violations of those conventions in a host of media. Primarily film, but also philosophy and graphic novels like Maus or in cinema history, given my interest in German cinema; but also where questions of the representablity of the Holocaust is very very important.
Which is to say some of my interest in theatre, performance, opera, and film intersect with interests that students in Jewish Studies might have. Although at the same time I should probably emphasize that I have not, at this point, been particularly focused on Jewish Studies, nor have I done a great deal to explore the possibilities for collaboration. I think in part it is because it already feels like I'm sort of a bit overextended by being in three different departments. But that having been said, I am certainly open to such collaborations and in terms of my course planning, it depends a little bit on what I'm going to be doing in the next couple of years. Because I might become a co-director of the masters program in the humanities. If I do that, I'll be doing very very few classes. Actually just one class a year. But I could otherwise, if I am teaching a normal load. My sense is, of course, I would certainly be interested.
If a student wanted to speak intelligibly about film within their interest, where should they start:
Cinema Media Studies. The program here is one of the best in the country and arguably one of the best in the world, and a rigorous one. Every year there is a sequence of introductory courses for new graduate students that is also open to other students in the university. A cinema history course is a sequence that goes over three quarters; you can take all three, or piece meal. There is also an Introduction to Methods and Issues in Cinema Studies. That is taught by a revolving member of the faculty.
At the same time the departmental administrator in Cinema and Media Studies has an annual calendar of the courses being offered. Students who need introductory work could take those core courses. Students who need more particular courses would of course, with very few exceptions, be welcome in any of the courses.
Teaching a course on post-war German cinema, half the class is from Media Studies but then there are some students from History, from Art History; students from all over the place. So I think generally in CMS courses there is a broad range of students that tend to explore.
What classes are you teaching:
This year I teach a core class in Text and Performance - that is an undergraduate core class. This quarter a graduate course in CMS on German Cinema between 1945 and 1989. Then this coming quarter I'm doing a course on adaptation, which will be an advanced undergraduate and a beginning graduate level course. And in that we will be doing all kinds of different media, and different theoretical problems of adaptation- both conventional- like plays that become films or become operas or novels that become films; but also less predictable ones.
I know next year I'll be teaching a graduate seminar class on the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the German new wave director, who is extraordinarily bizarre and interesting. For a time he was really controversial because of a play he wrote that was denounced for being anti-Semitic and there are Jewish figures in many of his films that are really problematic. That course may be of interest to students in Jewish Studies. And as with all my syllabi, I always in the first couple of weeks the syllabus is always presented as a tentative syllabus and then depending on the interests in the students in the class we adjust them during the course of the quarter...
What are you working on:
A book that I finally finished is about to come out with the University of Chicago press on radical stages of canonical operas called Unsettling Opera. That is supposed to come out in the course of the spring. In the meantime I am now working on a project on Wagner (Richard 19th century composer) and allegory.
I have also taken over the executive editorship of the journal the Opera Quarterly. And it takes up a good deal of my time. So I am working on the written work of colleagues that is in editing. And I am working on this Wagner project.