Cinema and Experience. Miriam HANSEN

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      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Several institutions have generously supported the research and the writing of this book. I have held fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, as well as residential fellowships at the American Academy in Berlin and the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). The latter two provided stimulating environments for discussion and excellent library services (no small matter for anyone who has tried to navigate Berlin’s many-branched library holdings). I have also benefitted from presenting early lecture versions of parts of this book in various places, among them the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University, Indiana University, Princeton University, and the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, and at a memorable centennial symposium on Benjamin at Wayne State University, Detroit. The German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar gave me access to the Kracauer Papers and invaluable help in deciphering all-too-Gothic scripts. The Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago supplemented the external fellowships and provided me with a steady research fund; it has also nurtured this book in more immaterial ways.

      Since joining the Chicago faculty in 1990, I have been fortunate to find extraordinary interlocutors among my colleagues and friends, both within the Departments of English and of Cinema and Media Studies and across the disciplines. For useful comments and challenges, conversations and expert advice, I am grateful to Lauren Berlant, Dipesh Chakrabarty, James Chandler, Bradin Cormack, Tom Gunning, Elizabeth Helsinger, Berthold Hoeckner, James Lastra, David Levin, W. J. T. Mitchell, Richard Neer, Robert Pippin, Eric Santner, and Yuri Tsivian. My thanks also go to the superb students, both graduate and undergraduate, whom I have taught here over the years: whether in seminars or advising situations, I have continually enjoyed the chance to learn from them. In particular, I would like to single out the Graduate Workshop on Mass Culture (where I presented parts of the book), which—together with the New Media Workshop—has provided an energetic, tough though congenial forum for discussions about cinema and media among doctoral students, faculty, and visitors.

      Beyond Chicago, I am indebted to numerous friends and colleagues who have been instrumental in the genesis and shaping of this book. My longest-standing debt is to the friends whose names have already appeared in the preface: Alexander Kluge, Gertrud Koch, Heide Schlüpmann, and Karsten Witte, whose memory I wish to honor with this book. I owe thanks to Albrecht Wellmer, who acted as my mentor for the Humboldt-Stift ung when I first embarked on the project, for, among other things, urging me to approach the question of Adorno’s significance for film theory from the perspective of his aesthetics of music. Andreas Huyssen shared with me his interest in theories of mass culture and modernity, his insights into contemporary art, and his expertise in German literature and visual culture. I am grateful to him and to Martin Jay for acute and useful readings for the University of California Press. For comments on all or parts of the manuscript at various stages and for encouragement and support in various forms, I wish to thank Paula Amad, Ingrid Belke, Harold Bloom, Horst Bredekamp, Susan Buck-Morss, Victoria de Grazia, Frances Ferguson, Heiner Goebbels, Lydia Goehr, Michael Jennings, Rob Kaufman, Roberta Malagoli, Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus, Klaus Michael, Laura Mulvey, Alexander Nagel, Gary Smith, and Lesley Stern.

      It has been a pleasure working with Mary Francis at the University of California Press; her patience and persistence were essential to the completion of the book. Eric Schmidt steered the book through the editorial and production process with great efficiency. Christina Petersen and James Hodge, my Chicago research assistants, did their best to tame and check the multitude of endnotes and played an important part in the preparation of the manuscript.

      My special thanks go to Bill Brown, whose work on “play” and “things” in modernity has been an inspiration to me for many years and who commented on many draft s with deft and elegant suggestions; to Edward Dimendberg, who believed in this book almost before I did, closely read every chapter, and brainstormed with me on the conception of the preface; and to Daniel Morgan, who made me think simultaneously harder and with greater ease about particular arguments and the book as a whole. The strongest impulse to make me clarify and raise the stakes of what I was doing came from Michael Geyer, dearest friend and husband, whom I cannot thank enough. He cast the historian’s long gaze on the project and challenged assumptions I had taken for granted. He has also been keeping me alive, in every sense of the word, through difficult times.