von Dassanowsky, Robert 1960– (Robert Dassanowsky)

views updated

von Dassanowsky, Robert 1960– (Robert Dassanowsky)

PERSONAL:

Born January 28, 1960, in New York, NY; son of Laszlo de Csonka (in business) and Elfi von Dassanowsky (an opera singer and film producer). Ethnic-ity: "Austrian-American." Education: Attended American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1977-78, and American Film Institute, 1979-81; University of California, Los Angeles, B.A., 1985, M.A., 1988, Ph.D., 1992. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Colorado Springs, CO; Los Angeles, CA; and Vienna, Austria. Office—Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Colorado, 1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy., P.O. Box 7150, Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, assistant professor, 1993-99, associate professor, 1999-2006, professor of German and film, 2006—, head of German studies, 1993—, director of film studies, 1997—, department chair, 2001-06. Professional actor, 1976-83; television writer and researcher, 1990-92; Belvedere Film, vice president and coproducer, 1999—; Austrian Cultural Forum, film consultant, 2006—; producer of dramatic short films "Semmelweis," 2001, and "Believe," 2003, animated short film "The Nightmare Stumbles Past," 2002, feature film "Wilson Chance," 2005, and documentary film "The Archduke and Herbert Hinkel," 2007. University of California, Los Angeles, visiting assistant professor, 1992-93, visiting professor, 2007, 2008. Member of board of directors, International Experimental Cinema Exposition and Denver British Film Festival. J. Paul Getty Conservation Institute, consultant and translator, 1991-93; Writers'Forum, managing editor, 1993-95; member of editorial board, Modern Austrian Literature, 1997-2000, and Ariadne Press, 1999—.

MEMBER:

International Alexander Lernet-Holenia Society (founding vice president, 1998—), European Academy of Sciences and Arts, American College of Heraldry (member of board of governors, 2000—), Modern Language Association of America, PEN USA West Center (member of board of directors, 1992-99; president and founder of Colorado chapter, 1994-99), PEN Austria, Austrian American Film Association (founding vice president, 1997—), Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Poet and Writers, Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association (member of executive council).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Resident in Vence, France, Michael Karolyi Memorial Foundation, 1979; playwriting award, Julie Harris/Beverly Hills Theater Guild, 1984, for Vespers; Accademico Honoris Causa, Accademia Culturale d'Europa (Italy), 1989; City of Los Angeles cultural affairs grants, 1990, 1991, 1992; Pushcart Prize nomination, 2000, for Telegrams from the Metropole; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award for Screenwriting, and several U.S. and European festival awards, 2002-03, for the short film "Semmelweis"; decoration of honor in silver, Republic of Austria, 2005.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Robert Dassanowsky) Phantom Empires: The Novels of Alexander Lernet-Holenia and the Question of Postimperial Austrian Identity, Ariadne (Riverside, CA), 1996.

(Translator; under name Robert Dassanowsky) Hans Raimund, Verses of a Marriage, Event Horizon (Desert Hot Springs, CA), 1996.

Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poetry, 1980-1998, University of Salzburg Press (Salzburg, Austria), 1999.

(Editor and contributor) Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, three volumes, 2nd edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

(Translator, with Elisabeth Littell Frech; and author of afterword) Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Mars in Aries, Ariadne (Riverside, CA), 2003.

Austrian Cinema: A History, McFarland and Co. (Jefferson, NC), 2005.

Author of the plays "The Birthday of Margot Beck," 1980; "Briefly Noted," 1981; "Vespers," 1982; "Tristan in Winter," 1986; "Songs of a Wayfarer," 1986; and "Coda," 1991. Contributor to books, including Thunder Rumbling at My Heels: Tracing Ingeborg Bachmann, edited by Gudrun Brokoph-Mauch, Ariadne, 1998; Criminals, Mad(wo)men, and Disease: Myth, Metaphor, and Reality in Austrian Literature, edited by Rebecca Thomas, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007; Cinema and the Swastika (1933-1945), edited by Roel Vande Winkel and David Welch, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2007; and Hans Moser, edited by Gottfried Schlemmer, Georg Sesslen, and Arno Russegger, Filmarchiv Austria, 2008. Columnist for Celluloid, 2002—. Contributor of critical articles, reviews, and poetry to periodicals, including Cinema Studies, Bright Lights Film Journal, Camera Obscura, Studies in Popular Culture, Germanic Notes, East European Quarterly, High Performance, Manhattan Review, California Quarterly, and Modern Austrian Literature. Editor of cinema series, University Press of the South, 2004—. Editor, New German Review, 1986-91; founding editor and publisher, Rohwedder: International Magazine of Literature and Art, 1986-93; corresponding editor, Rampike, 1991-93; contributing editor, Osiris, 1991—, Adirondack Review, 2002-04, and Poetry Salzburg Review, 2002—; associate editor, Center, 1992-98, and International Journal of Arts in Society, 2006-07; coeditor of special issue, FilmKunst, 1997.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert von Dassanowsky's interests parallel his Austrian heritage; he grew up in a bilingual household. Von Dassanowsky worked as an actor in Los Angeles, a playwright, and a poet before turning to academic studies in German. In addition, von Dassanowsky developed what he called "the sense of art and culture as something that can be used as political propaganda or used to enlighten and educate," as he remarked in an interview with Daniel Goldman for the Colorado Springs Independent. His position as head of German studies at the University of Colorado includes teaching a course on how film perceptions of the Holocaust differ in different national cinemas. "How are you being manipulated to see a certain point of view?" Dassanowsky questioned in the Goldman interview. "And does that point of view stand up to history?"

Von Dassanowsky once told CA: "My scholarly and creative interest in women in history and society, and in women's art is inspired by the work and life of my mother, the postwar opera star and international arts figure, Elfi von Dassanowsky. She was one of the few women in history to found and administer a film studio (the only Austrian) and was instrumental in creating democratic Central European arts institutions and cultural exchange. In addition to my aesthetic/ethnic influence, my basic feminism stems from this enlightened female model."