Sara Friedman

PhD Candidate

Late Modern Europe


Dissertation

My dissertation shows how film became a forum through which to advocate and imagine humanistic social change during the first few years of the Weimar Republic.


Research Interests

  • Imperial and Weimar Germany
  • German film and literature
  • World War I
  • LGBTQ+ history
  • Media archaeology

Selected Publications

“Universal Language with a German Accent: Conrad Veidt in Silent Hollywood,” German Studies Review, May 2021.

Book review: The British in Interwar Germany: The Reluctant Occupiers, 1918-30 by David G. Williamson, H-War, H-Net Reviews, September 2020.

Book review: Homo Cinematicus: Science, Motion Pictures, and the Making of Modern Germany by Andreas Killen, MEDIENwissenschaft: Rezensionen | Reviews, Nr. 2 (2019).

“Projecting Hopes and Fears: Gay Rights on the German Screen after World War I,” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, May 2019.

Selected Awards and Fellowships

2021-2022, Erasmus+ Freie Universität Berlin

2021-2022, Global, International and Area Studies John L. Simpson ABD Fellowship, University of California - Berkeley

2020-2021, Stipendium der Studienstiftung des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin (Study Foundation of the Berlin House of Representatives)

2020, Philip Brett LGBT Studies Fellowship, University of California - Berkeley

2019, Institute for European Studies Gerald D. and Norma Feldman Graduate Student Dissertation Fellowship, University of California - Berkeley

2018, Max Kade Travel Stipend Award

2016-2022, Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship for Graduate Study, University of California - Berkeley

2005-2009, Merit Scholarship, University of Chicago

Selected Presentations

“Idealists and Exiles: Internationalism in Sexology and Film from Weimar to War,” Seminar:  “Transnational Germans: Local Actors and Global Spaces, Global Actors and Local Spaces,” German Studies Association, Indianapolis, IN, September 2021.

“‘Eine Zensur findet nicht statt‘. Film und die Novemberrevolution,” Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung e.V. an der TU Dresden: HAIT-Doktorandenforum, Dresden, Germany (online conference), November 2020.

“Durch Film zur Gerechtigkeit. Fortschrittliche Filme und die Novemberrevolution,” Humboldt Universität zu Berlin: Europäische Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts Kolloquium, Berlin, Germany (invited talk), November 2020.

“The Afterlives of Anders als die Andern: Media Archaeology and Queer Weimar,” University of British Columbia: The Pasts and Futures of Queer German Studies Conference, Vancouver, Canada (online conference), April 2020.

“Experiments in German Censorship from Verdun to Weimar,” Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München: ProMoHist-Kolloquium, Munich, Germany (invited talk), December 2019.

“Movies in the Universal Language: A Babelsberg Star in Silent Hollywood”, German Historical Institute West: West Coast Germanists’ Workshop, Los Angeles, CA, April 2019.