Susanne Kord

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Susanne Kord in 2019

Theresia Susanne Kord, or T. S. Kord is a scholar of women's studies, literary studies and film studies, and the author of 11 books and 70 scholarly articles published in four languages.[1]

Academic career[edit]

Kord has been a professor at University College London since 2004,[2] where she is the Chair of German. She was a visiting fellow at the All Souls College, Oxford;[2] visiting scholar at the St John's College, Oxford;[2] and a visiting professor the University of Edinburgh.[2]

Kord was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2021;[3] Fellow of the British Royal Historical Society in 2015;[4] and Honorary Secretary and Council Member of the English branch of the Goethe Society in 2008.[5]

Kord spent 16 years as an academic in the United States: with tenured positions at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C., 1993-2004), where she was George M. Roth Distinguished Professor;[1] and at the University of Cincinnati (Ohio, 1990–93).[1] She was also visiting lecturer at Dartmouth College in the United States from 1988-1990.[1]

Kord earned an M.A. degree in English and American literature at Philipps Universität Marburg (Germany),[1] and an M.A. and PhD in German literature (1990) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (United States).[1]

Research Focus[edit]

Kord's first two books, written in German, focused on little-known female German authors of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her 1992 book, Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen (A Glance Backstage, 1992[6]), was the first comprehensive historical study of eighteenth- and nineteenth century women playwrights and is credited with the rediscovery of many of these writers.[7][8][9] The work won Swiss National Radio's Best Book of the Year Award in 1993. Her 1996 book, Sich einen Namen machen (Making a Name for Herself[10]), delved into eighteenth- and nineteenth century women writers' strategies of using pseudonyms to conceal their gender.

Kord's interests branched out in the early 2000s into Comparative Literature and Film Studies and she began to publish in English. She explored subjects ranging from 18th-century women peasant poets in Germany and the British Isles,[11] real-life and fictional murderesses in 18th century Germany,[12] gender in Hollywood films,[13][14] time travel in science fiction films[15] and philosophy in modern horror films[16][17] to the rise of antisemitism in Germany and Austria before both World Wars.[18]

Literary translations[edit]

Kord has translated the works of little-known female authors from German to English, including the naturalist playwright Elsa Bernstein[19] and Goethe associate, playwright and novelist Charlotte von Stein.[20] Her literary translations of dramatic plays from German to English include Elsa Bernstein's Dämmerung (1893), published as 'Twilight',[21] and Bernstein's drama Maria Arndt (1908),[22] performed at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, March 2002.[23]

Poetry[edit]

In the 1990s, Kord published poetry in English and German in various journals, holding public readings at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. In 1994, she was awarded the Robert L. Kahn Lyrik-Preis by the Society for Contemporary American Literature in German, for her poem ‘grammatik’ [24] (published in Trans-Lit, 1994).[25] The themes of Kord’s published poetry draw on her professional research on challenges faced by female authors, and on the poverty she observed in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. neighborhoods.

Alternate author names[edit]

Kord sometimes employs a gender-concealing alias. Her books Little Horrors (2016) and Lovable Crooks (2018) were published under the gender-neutral author name T. S. Kord, leading some reviewers of both works to assume she was male.[26]

Awards[edit]

Kord has won six awards for her writing, including the 2012 Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year (for her book with Elisabeth Krimmer, Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities)[27] and the Forum Prize, Best Article of the Year, for The Rule of Law and the Role of Literature: German Public Debates on Husband Killers and Human Rights, Forum for Modern Language Studies, (January 2012).[28][29]

Academic style[edit]

Kord's scholarship, which originated in the effort to make lost work by women accessible to a modern readership, employs a straightforward writing style that is often noted in reviews.[30][31] This has on occasion put her at odds with the idea that "academic communication is fundamentally different from everyday vernacular discourse."[32] Kord holds that serious scholarship is not compromised by approachable language: "I've never been a fan of the academic credo that if a book is comprehensible to more than three people, the author must have sold out."[33]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Kord, Susanne 1959- | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com.
  2. ^ a b c d "Susanne Kord". SELCS. June 21, 2019.
  3. ^ "Professor Susanne Kord FBA". The British Academy.
  4. ^ "Report Of Council Session 2015 – 2016" (pdf). Royal Historical Society.
  5. ^ "UCL professor elected to English Goethe Society". UCL News. November 11, 2008.
  6. ^ Kord, Susanne (1992). Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen: Deutschsprachige Dramatikerinnen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Metzler. p. 509. ISBN 978-3-476-00835-0.
  7. ^ Molina, Caroline (Winter 1993). "Review: 'Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen'". The German Quarterly. 66 (1): 116–7.
  8. ^ Wurst, Karin A. (Oct 1993). "Review: 'Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen'". German Studies Review. 16 (3): 555–7.
  9. ^ Fleig, Anne (1994). "Review: 'Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen'". Zeitschrift für Germanistik. Neue Folge 4 (2): 415–7.
  10. ^ Kord, Susanne (1994). Sich einen Namen machen: Anonymität und weibliche Autorschaft, 1700-1900. Stuttgart: Metzler. p. 240. ISBN 9783476014382.
  11. ^ Kord, Susanne (2003). Women Peasant Poets in England, Scotland and Germany: Milkmaids on Parnassus. Rochester, NY: Camden House. p. 339. ISBN 9781571132680.
  12. ^ Kord, Susanne (2009). Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0521519779.
  13. ^ Kord, Susanne; Krimmer, Elisabeth (2011). Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities: Gender, Genre and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 291. ISBN 978-0230338418.
  14. ^ Kord, Susanne; Krimmer, Elisabeth (2004). Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens and TV Heroines: Contemporary Screen Images of Women. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 192. ISBN 978-0742537095.
  15. ^ Kord, Susanne (2019). 12 Monkeys. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 120. ISBN 9781800342491.
  16. ^ Kord, Susanne (2023). The Cabin in the Woods. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 120. ISBN 9781800856448.
  17. ^ Kord, T.S. (2016). Little Horrors: How Cinema's Evil Children Play on Our Guilt. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 277. ISBN 9781476666068.
  18. ^ Kord, T.S. (2018). Lovable Crooks and Loathsome Jews: Antisemitism in German and Austrian Crime Writing Before the World Wars. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 347. ISBN 9781476670126.
  19. ^ Garland, Henry, and Mary Garland (2005). "entry 'Elsa Bernstein'". The Oxford Companion to German Literature.
  20. ^ "Charlotte von Stein". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2 January 2023. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  21. ^ Bernstein, Elsa (2003). Dämmerung / Twilight. Re-edition and translation, with an introduction. Ed. and trans. Susanne Kord. New York: Modern Language Association. pp. 2 vols.
  22. ^ Rosmer, Ernst, (that is: Elsa Bernstein) (1996). "Maria Arndt, trans. and ed. by Susanne Kord". Modern Drama by Women, 1880s-1930s: An International Anthology, ed. Katherine Kelly. New York (Routledge): 80–107.
  23. ^ Simonson, Robert. "How do you revive a play like Maria Arndt?". Playbill. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  24. ^ Kahn, Lisa (1994). "Susanne Kord, Washington, DC, was awarded the 1994 Robert L. Kahn Lyrik-Preis". TRANS-LIT, publication of SCALG. III (2): 3.
  25. ^ Kord, Susanne (1994). "grammatik". TRANS-LIT, publication of SCALG. III (2): 4.
  26. ^ Tiburcio Moreno, Erika (2018). "Review of 'Little Horrors'". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (1): 213–15.
  27. ^ "some CHOICE titles for the year". December 19, 2012.
  28. ^ "Forum Prize Winners". Oxford Academic.
  29. ^ Kord, Susanne (January 2012). "The Rule of Law and the Role of Literature: Public Debates on Husband-Killers and Human Rights (1788-1845)". Forum for Modern Language Studies. 48: 59–73.
  30. ^ Schmitt, Gavin (2016). "Review of 'Little Horrors'". Killer Reviews.com: 1–3.
  31. ^ Kitley, John (2016). "Review of 'Little Horrors'". Kitley's Krypt: 1–4.
  32. ^ Graff, Gerald (2000). "Scholars and Sound Bites: The Myth of Academic Difficulty". PMLA. 115 (5): 1041–52.
  33. ^ Kord, Susanne (2016). Little Horrors: How Cinema's Evil Children Play on Our Guilt. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 2.
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