Before joining the faculty at UBC in July 2012, Dr. Kyle Frackman (he/him) taught at institutions in the United States: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, and Amherst College.

Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Dr. Frackman attended Hamline University, graduating with a major in German Studies. For 2001–2002, Dr. Frackman was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Hamburg, Germany. At UMass Amherst, Dr. Frackman completed graduate studies and a dissertation under the direction of Prof. Susan Cocalis.

Dr. Frackman has received research and travel support from a number of organizations and institutions, including the Holocaust Education Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), UBC, the Faculty of Arts, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, the Nordic Council, the Fulbright Commission, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and the Swedish Institute.

Dr. Frackman is Associate and Affiliated Faculty in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, the Centre for European Studies, the Centre for Cinema Studies and graduate program in Cinema and Media Studies, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

Research Interests

• German-language and Nordic literature (especially 19th-/20th-century)
• East German culture and history
• Queer studies
• German and Nordic film
• media studies
• book history, print cultures
• German-North American immigration
• German, Swedish, Finnish

Research Projects

Homosexuality in East Germany, supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant: "Coming Out of the Iron Closet: Queer Lives in East Germany"

German-BC, German-Canadian immigration

With Dr. Gregory Mackie (English) and UBC Rare Books and Special Collections, the Jane Rule Endowment-funded "Queer Collections Project," which works to augment UBC's holdings in queer literary and cultural history

Books

Coming Out. German Film Classics. Camden House, 2022. (R)

Gender and Sexuality in East German Film: Intimacy and Alienation. Co-Ed. with Faye Stewart. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018. (R)

• Reviewed in: German Studies Review 42.1 (2019): 193-95; Modern Language Review 114.2 (2019): 415-16; The German Quarterly 92.2 (2019): 297-300.

An Other Kind of Home: Gender-Sexual Abjection, Subjectivity, and the Uncanny in Literature and Film. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2015. 181 pp. (R)

• Reviewed in: Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 53.4 (2017): 409-411; Feminist German Studies 34 (2019): 161-63; Monatshefte 110.4 (2019): 690-92; The German Quarterly 92.3 (2019): 405–07.

Classical Music in the German Democratic Republic: Production and Reception. Co-Ed. with Larson Powell. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015. (R)

• Reviewed in Journal of European Studies 46.2 (2016): 198-200; Women in German Newsletter 127 (Summer 2016): 23-24; Music and Letters 97.2 (2016): 364-66; American Record Guide 79.2 (2016): 237; Monatshefte 109.2 (2017): 332-34; German Studies Review 40.3 (2017): 688-90.

From Weimar to Christiania: German and Scandinavian Studies in Context. Co-Ed. with Florence Feiereisen. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.

Journal Articles

"Homemade Pornography and the Proliferation of Queer Pleasure in East Germany." Radical History Review 142 (2022): 93–109. (R)

“‘Du bist Nummer 55′: Girls’ Education, Mädchen in Uniform, and Social Responsibility.” Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 55.2 (2019): 110-27. (R)

“Persistent Ambivalence: Theorizing Queer East German Studies.” Journal of Homosexuality 66.5 (2019): 669–89. (R)

“The East German Film Coming Out (1989) as Melancholic Reflection and Hopeful Projection.” German Life and Letters 71.4 (2018): 452-72. (R) Reissued in Nov. 2019 special online issue of German Life and Letters.

"Based on a True Story: Tracking What's Queer about German Queer Documentary." Edinburgh German Yearbook 10 (2018): 83-108. (R)

"The Reality of the Body: Transgender, Transsexuality, and Truth in Romeos." Colloquia Germanica 46.1 (2015): 64-87. (R)

"Coming Out of the Iron Closet: Contradiction in East German Gay History and Film." Glossen 37 (2013). (R)

“The Curious Case of the Turkish Drag Queen: Film and Social Justice Education in Advanced German.” Neues Curriculum (August 2012). (R)

“Something Old, Something New: Canon Rejuvenation in German Studies.” Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German 44.2 (2011): 124-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-1221.2011.00102.x (R)

Book Chapters

"Shame and Love: East German Homosexuality Goes to the Movies." In Gender and Sexuality in East German Film: Intimacy and Alienation. Eds. Kyle Frackman and Faye Stewart. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018. 225-248. (R)

— and Faye Stewart. "Introduction: Sex and Socialism in East German Cinema." In Gender and Sexuality in East German Film: Intimacy and Alienation. Eds. Kyle Frackman and Faye Stewart. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018. 1-21. (R)

— and Larson Powell. "Music and Heritage in the German Democratic Republic." In Classical Music in the German Democratic Republic: Production and Reception. Eds. Kyle Frackman and Larson Powell. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015. 1-19. (R)

"Vor Ort: The Functions and Early Roots of German Regional Crime Fiction." Tatort Germany: The Strange Case of German Crime Fiction. Eds. Todd Herzog and Lynn Marie Kutch. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014. 23-40. (R)

“Out of Time: ‘Allotemporality’ in Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss’s Zurück auf los.” queere (t)ex(t)perimente. Ed. Franziska Bergmann, Jennifer Moos, and Claudia Münzing. Freiburg: fwpf-Verlag, 2008. (R)

Feiereisen, Florence, and Kyle Frackman. Introduction. In From Weimar to Christiania: German and Scandinavian Studies in Context. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 1-5.

Encyclopedia Entries

Entries on "Einojuhani Rautavaara," "Folk High Schools," "Nobel Peace Prize," and "Swedish-speakers in Finland." Knowledge on the Nordics. 2018.

Entries on “Lola und Bilidikid” and “Zurück auf los” in The Directory of World Cinema: Germany. Ed. Michelle Langford. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2012. 192-93, 196-97.

“Finland, Civil War, and Revolution, 1914-1918.” International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present. Ed. Immanuel Ness. NY: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 1200-02. (R)

Entries on “German Literature,” “Magnus Hirschfeld,” and “Richard von Krafft-Ebing” in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship, and Sexuality through History: The Nineteenth Century. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan Mumm. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 138-42, 111-13, 130-32.

Non-Refereed Publications

"Coming Out, the East German film that premiered when the Berlin Wall fell, is still relevant today." The Conversation. 16 Nov. 2021.

“Coming Out in East Germany.” Coming Out. Critical essay on special edition DVD. Directed by Heiner Carow. Amherst, MA: DEFA Film Library, 2021.

---, and Skyler Arndt-Briggs. Teaching Guide: Coming Out: A Film by Heiner Carow. DEFA Film Library, 2021.

“Why do GDR Studies Matter Now?” DDGC Blog. 27 May 2019.

"Amplification as Feminist Practice." Digital Feminist Collective: Feminist Scholar-Activism. January 2018.

"Nordic Non-Fiction Summer Reading Guide." Viking Magazine June 2015: 21. Print.

"A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA's Beethovens." A Beethoven Duet. DVD released by the DEFA Film Library. 2014. 12 pp.

Reviews

Smith, Tom. Comrades in Arms: Military Masculinities in East German Culture. New York: Berghahn Books, 2020. In German Studies Review 44.2 (2021): 425–26.

Allan, Seán. Screening Art: Modernist Aesthetics and the Socialist Imaginary in East German Cinema. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019. In Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 56.1 (2020): 80–82.

Lion Feuchtwanger, The Devil in Boston: A Play about the Salem Witchcraft Trials in Three Acts. Ed. Waltraud Maierhofer. Trans. J. Barrows Mussey. [1948] North Liberty: Amazon Digital Services, 2015. In Women in German Newsletter 128 (2017): 23–25.

Jampol, Justinian, ed. Beyond the Wall: Art and Artifacts from the GDR. NY: Taschen, 2014. In Seminar: Journal of Germanic Studies 53.3 (2017): 305-307.

"To be gay in 1950s Zurich." kultur360. 27 May 2016. Original available at http://www.kultur360.com/to-be-gay-in-1950s-zurich/.

Mueller, Gabriele, and James M. Skidmore, eds. Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012. In German Studies Review 37.1 (2014): 243-46.

Blawid, Martin. Von Kraftmenschen und Schwächlingen: Literarische Männlichkeitsentwürfe bei Lessing, Goethe, Schiller und Mozart. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. In Monatshefte 104.3 (2012): 428-30.

Krimmer, Elisabeth, and Patricia Anne Simpson, eds. Enlightened War: German Theories and Cultures of Warfare from Frederick the Great to Clausewitz. Rochester: Camden House, 2011. In Women in German Newsletter 120 (2012). Web.

Schulte, Hans and Gerard Chapple, eds. Shadows of the Past: Austrian Literature of the Twentieth Century. NY: Peter Lang, 2009. In German Quarterly 83.4 (2010).

Beiser, Frederick C., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. In German Studies Review 33.2 (2010).

Freydberg, Bernard. Schelling’s Dialogical Freedom Essay: Provocative Philosophy Then and Now. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. In German Studies Review 33.2 (2010).

Jones, Michael, and Kenneth R. Olwig, eds. Nordic Landscapes: Region and Belonging on the Northern Edge of Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. In Scandinavian-Canadian Studies 18 (2009): 120-23.

Mennel, Barbara. The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. In Women in German Newsletter 108 (2008).

Campt, Tina. Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. In gender forum 18 (2007).

Pomerance, Murray, and Frances Gateward, eds. Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Masculinity and Youth. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. In gender forum 17 (2007).

“Queer Futurities and the East German Socialist Utopia.” GDR Today VI. University of St. Andrews. 16 Sept. 2021.

"Parallel Worlds: The Legacies of East Germany's Coming Out." University of North Texas. 9 Nov. 2020.

“Persistent and Deceptive Ambivalence: Queer East German Studies.” Stanford University, Department of German Studies. 7 Nov. 2017.

Discussant for Book Launch: Alessandra Santos, The Holy Mountain (2017). 1 Nov. 2017.

"Bergman and Allen and Sondheim—oh, my!" Screen-to-Stage Pre-Performance Discussion. Gateway Theatre, Richmond, BC. 15 Oct. 2017.

“Schnitzler, Lt. Gustl, and Crises of Gender in Modernism.” Guest Lecture and Discussion, Arts One, UBC. 30 Nov. 2015.

"The Short End of the Broomstick: Sex, Gender, and the European Witch Persecution." Nerd Nite Vancouver. 15 Oct. 2015.

Graduate Student Workshop on the Profession. Dept. of CENES, UBC. 29 Sept. 2015.

“DEFA: Cinema of the Other Germany.” Guest Lecture and Discussion, GERM 304: German Cinema. Dept. of CENES, UBC. 5 Aug. 2015.

Invited Co-Director, 8th Biennial East German Summer Film Institute: "Sex, Gender, and Videotape: Love, Eroticism, and Romance in East Germany." Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. 19-26 July 2015. Co-directed with Victoria Rizo Lenshyn.

Introductions. Public Film Screenings and Discussions of Beziehungen zwischen Jungen und Mädchen (Pt. 1, Sagst Du’s deinem Kinde? and Pt. 3, Partner), Sieben Sommersprossen, Sie, Mann und Frau intim, and Liebe ohne Angst; and Die andere Liebe and Coming Out. Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and Amherst Cinema, Amherst, Massachusetts. 21, 22, and 23 July 2015. Part of the 2015 8th Biennial East German Summer Film Institute, Northampton, Massachusetts.

“Mädchen in Uniform in the Context of German Education and Boarding School Fiction.” Mädchen in Uniform Conference. University of British Columbia. 14-15 Sept. 2013.

“Vikings in Middle-earth? Tolkien and Nordic Material.” Guest Lecture in SCAN 335: Vikings. Dept. of Central, Eastern, & Northern European Studies. University of British Columbia. 28 Mar. 2013.

“The Reality of Free Will: Ibsen and The Lady from the Sea.” Guest Lecture in CENS 404: Gender & Nation. Dept. of Central, Eastern, & Northern European Studies. University of British Columbia. 6 Nov. 2012.

“Germany is a Resort.” Introductory remarks for visit by Prof. Claire Kramsch. Inaugural Lecture and Reception for Language Research and Teaching Lab. Dept. of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, UMass Amherst. 14 May 2012.

“Questions of Humanity: Steve Sem-Sandberg’s The Emperor of Lies.” People of the Book. 9 May 2012. Amherst, Massachusetts.

“Coming Out of the Iron Closet:  Melancholy, Suppression, and East Germany.” Bucknell University, Department of German Studies. 20 April 2010.

Programmleiter: “Wende-Flicks im Unterricht.” [“Wende-Flicks in the Classroom.”] Workshop on East German Fall-of-the-Wall films co-facilitated with Victoria Lenshyn. Virginia AATG Immersion Weekend for German Teachers. Sweet Briar College. 18-20 Sep. 2009. Teaching materials available online. Featured in The Daily Collegian.

“A Time and Place for Sexuality: Uncanny Queerness and Contemporary Germany.” 19 April 2009. Department of German, Williams College. Included as part of Queer Pride Days.

Selected Refereed Presentations

“‘Die im Vorgang erfaßten Personen waren praktizierende Homosexuelle’: Reading for and from Affect in Secret Records of Queer East Germany.” Seminar on “Feminist Scholar Activism and the Politics of Affect.” German Studies Association. 6 Oct. 2017. Atlanta, Georgia.

“Queerness in East Germany: Film, Media, and Archival Traces.” Seminar on “Socialist Media Landscapes: Queerness, Gender, Sexuality.” German Studies Association. 29 Sep.-2 Oct. 2016. San Diego, California.

“The Other Love in the Other Germany: East German Film, Media, and Social Change for Gay Rights.” Canadian Association of University Teachers of German, panel sponsored by Women in German. 30 May 2016. Calgary, Alberta.

"Queer Documentary in the Shadow of the Wall." German Studies Association. Washington, DC. 1-4 Oct. 2015. Seminar on "East German Cinema and TV in a Global Context."

"Unearthing Socialist Sexuality: Examinations of Gayness in the GDR." German Studies Association. Kansas City, Missouri. 18-21 Sept. 2014.

"Gay in the GDR: Documentary and Personal History in Unter Männern." Canadian Association of University Teachers of German. 24-27 May 2014. St. Catharines, Ontario.

"The Pursuit of Happiness: The Role of Truth in Sex, Gender, and Body Transformation." German Studies Association 2013. 3-6 Oct. 2013. Denver, Colorado.

“On the Cusp of ‘Truth’: Confession and Transsexuality in Sabine Bernardi's Romeos.” Canadian Association of University Teachers of German. 2-4 June 2013. Victoria, British Columbia.

"'Jauchzet, frohlocket!': Parody and Musical Commentary in Heiner Carow's Coming Out." Panel: Music and Interdisciplinarity I: New Theoretical Perspectives. GSA 2012. 4-7 Oct. 2012. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

"Mord auf dem Ländle: The Advantages of German Regional Crime Fiction." Panel: Best Practices: Teaching German Literature on the Undergraduate Level. NEMLA 2012. 15-18 Mar. 2012. Rochester, New York.

“Outsiderdom: Exclusion and Inclusion in the GDR.” Poster session. Women in German Conference. 20-23 Oct. 2011. Augusta, Michigan.

“Old Faces, New Places: Canon Rejuvenation in German Studies.” NEMLA 2010. 7-11 Apr. 2010. Montreal.

“The Curious Case of the Turkish Drag Queen: Queer Film and Feminist Pedagogy in an Advanced German Stylistics Course.” Panel (Praxis and Pedagogy): Queering the Gaze: Film and Feminism in the Classroom. Women in German Conference. 22-25 Oct. 2009. Augusta, Michigan.

“Perverse Symbiosis: Home, Respectability, and Corporeal Subjectivity in Frank Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen.” Panel: Pedagogical Narratives: The Body and Education around 1900. GSA 2009. 8-11 Oct. 2009. Washington, DC.

“Podcasting Culture: Technology as a Means of Cultural Integration in an Intensive Elementary German Course.” Co-presented with Victoria Lenshyn. Second Symposium on Contemporary German Culture: Teaching Culture(s). 10-11 April 2009. Middlebury College.

“The Temporality of Sexuality and Disease in Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss’s Zurück auf los.” Panel: German-German Problems (I). NEMLA 2008. 10-13 April 2008. Buffalo, New York.

“Introductory Language Teaching: Swedish.” Demonstration and discussion. Invited to TA Orientation, German & Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Aug. 2007.

“There’s No Place Like Home…? The Queerly Diasporic in Lola + Bilidikid.” Panel: Down and Out in the New Germany. NEMLA 2007. 1-4 Mar. 2007. Baltimore, Maryland.

“Opportunities and Challenges for Multimedia and Online Teaching in German.” Invited to German 583: Methods of Teaching German, Prof. Sarah McGaughey. 6 Nov. 2006. University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“Dissolving the Fourth Wall: Theatricality and Masculine Space in German and Nordic Painting.” Poster session. Women in German Conference. 19-22 Oct. 2006. Snowbird, Utah.

“Introductory Language Teaching: Swedish.” Demonstration and discussion. Invited to TA Orientation, German & Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Aug. 2006.

“Boy Interrupted: Male Homosociality and Anxieties of Intrusion in Nordic Visual Art.” Panel: Men in/and Art. Conference: Nordic Conference on Men and Masculinities: Experiences of Men—Masculinities and Bodies. 5-7 May 2006. Åbo Akademi University, Turku/Åbo, Finland.

“Bedding with Honor: Gender Dynamics in fin-de-siècle German and Austrian Educational Culture.” Poster session. Women in German Conference. 20-23 Oct. 2005. Carrollton, Kentucky.

“There is a Time and a Place for Everything: Logics of Textual Time-Space.” Panel: Language, Ideology, and Education. Conference: Eurovisions: Crossing Disciplines, Crossing Boundaries. Department of Anthropology. University of Massachusetts Amherst. 13-14 May 2005.

“‘Die lähmende Gewalt der Enge’: Discipline, Sexual Complicity, and Queer Space in Robert Musil’s Törleß.” Poster session. Women in German Conference. 21-24 Oct. 2004. Carrollton, Kentucky.

“Queerly Everyday: Discursive Mobility and (Hetero)Normative Discipline in Der bewegte Mann.” With Rachael A. Salyer. Panel: (Re)Negotiations of History, Gender, and Subjectivity: East, West, and Post-Wende German Film. Conference: (Re)Visions: New Ideas in German and European Studies. University of Massachusetts Amherst. 26 Mar. 2004.

Chaired Panels and Conferences

Conference Program Co-Chair, Canadian Association of University Teachers of German (CAUTG). Congress 2016. Calgary, Alberta. 28-31 May 2015.

(Invited) Co-Convenor, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Love, Eroticism, and Romance in East Germany." East German Summer Film Institute, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. 19-26 July 2015.

Conference Program Co-Chair, Canadian Association of University Teachers of German (CAUTG). Congress 2015. Ottawa, Ontario. 30 May - 2 June 2015.

Panel Co-Organizer. "New Feminist and Queer Approaches in North American German Studies." Inaugural Panel Sponsored by Women in German at the 2014 Canadian Association of University Teachers of German Conference. St. Catharines, Ontario. May 2014.

Panel Moderator. "Men in Crisis." German Studies Association 2012. 4-7 Oct. 2012. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Panel Chair. "Best Practices: Teaching German Literature at the Undergraduate Level (II)." NEMLA 2012. 15-18 Mar. 2012. Rochester, New York.

Panel Co-Organizer. Poster Session. Women in German Conference. Oct. 2009. Augusta, Michigan.

Panel Co-Organizer. “Filling Out in the Middle: Innovations for Intermediate German.” Women in German Session at the AATG Conference. Nov. 2008. Orlando, Florida.

Panel Co-Organizer. Poster Session. Women in German Conference. Oct. 2008. Snowbird, Utah.

Panel Chair. “German-German Problems (II): Continuities and Discontinuities in Post-Unification Germany.” NEMLA 2008. 10-13 April 2008. Buffalo, New York.

Panel Chair. “Children of Myth.” Myth: German & Scandinavian Studies. Graduate Student Conference at UMass Amherst. 15-17 Feb. 2008.

Panel Co-Organizer. Poster Session. Women in German Conference. Oct. 2007. Snowbird, Utah.

Conference Organizer/Chair. Experimentations: German and Scandinavian Studies. Graduate Student Conference at UMass Amherst. Germanic Languages and Literatures. 18-19 Feb. 2006. Obtained ca. $2,000 in grants.

Panel Organizer. “(Con)Textual Infusions of German and Scandinavian Studies.” Experimentations: German and Scandinavian Studies. UMass Amherst. Germanic Languages and Literatures. 18-19 Feb. 2006.

Conference Organizer/Chair. (Re)Visions: New Ideas in European Studies. Graduate Student Conference at UMass Amherst. Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. 26-27 Mar. 2004. Obtained ca. $1,000 in grants.

Panel Co-Organizer. “Fixed and Fluctuating: Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in Twentieth-Century Germany.” (Re)Visions: New Ideas in European Studies. Graduate Student Conference at UMass Amherst. Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. 26-27 Mar. 2004.

Media

Germany@Canada 2017, Goethe-Institut. "British Columbia Through Arriving Eyes." 9 May 2017.

Arts on Air, CITR. Nov. 26, 2015.

KPRI Radio. Nov. 7, 2014. Discussion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

UBC News. “Casting a Long Shadow.” Oct. 27, 2014.

Press kit accolade/review for film release of Out in East Berlin – Lesbians and Gays in the GDR. Nancy Fishman Film Releasing.

“Faculty Spotlight: Professor Kyle Frackman.” The Scribe (College of Humanities & Fine Arts Advising Center Newsletter). Dec. 8, 2011. (PDF)

“Class explores witches’ history.” Springfield Republican Oct. 31, 2011. (PDF)

“Nightmarish Fantasy and Gruesome History: ‘Witches’ Class Examines Folklore and Fact.” In the Classroom, Amherst College. Oct. 28, 2011.

“UMass Amherst: Frackman and Arndt-Briggs take part in German exchange.” University of Massachusetts International Relations. July 28, 2010.

“UMass takes part in a German language immersion program.” Daily Collegian. Oct. 5, 2009.