Overview
Erik Born is an Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies. His work brings insights from contemporary (German) media theory to bear on diverse historical contexts, especially the Late Middle Ages and Early European Modernity. With a focus on relations among “old media” and “new media” (in the broad sense), Born explores diverse constellations of literature, science, and technology, from manuscripts to print, analog to digital film, and wireless telegraphy to Wi-Fi.
He is the author of articles on medieval media theory, early German science fiction, and the media history of cinema and television, as well as translations and book reviews on topics in literature, film, and media studies. His current book project, Wireless Futures: Speculative Media in German Modernity, presents an archaeology of apparent precursors to mobile devices, cellular networks, and cultures of connectivity from another transitional moment a century ago. His next large-scale research project will address premodern cultural techniques of reading, writing, and counting.
Office Hours
Tu 11:45-1:00 and by email appointment
Research Focus
- German Language, Literature, and Culture (Pre-1800)
- Media History and Theory
- German Cinema (esp. Silent Film)
- Science Fiction
- Critical Theory
Publications
Selected Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed)
“Zeitlupe: Cinematic Technique and Literary Form in the Weimar Republic.” German Studies Review 44.3 (2021): 469–488.
“Some Omissions in the Universal Library: Kurd Lasswitz and the Emergence of Science Fiction.” Monatshefte 110.4 (Winter 2018): 529–551. doi: 10.3368/m.110.4.529
“Media Archaeology, Cultural Techniques, and the Middle Ages: An Approach to the Study of Media before The Media." Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 52.2 (2016): 107–133. doi: 10.3138/seminar.52.2.2
Selected Book Chapters
“What was Time Axis Manipulation?” In Friedrich Kittler: Neue Lektüren, edited by Jens Schroeter and Till Heilmann. Berlin: Springer, 2022.
“Cinema Panopticum: Wax, Work, Waxworks.” In ReFocus: The Films of Paul Leni, edited by Martin Norden and Erica Tortolani. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
“Notation: From Scrolls to Scores.” In Hans Richters Rhythmus 21. Schlüsselfilm der Moderne. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012.
Selected Web-Based Publications
“Going Wireless in the Belle Époque.” Continent 7.1 (Spring 2018): 5–16.
“The Promise of Television.” The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933. Companion Website (October 2017).
Selected Translations
Florian Sprenger. “Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings: John Scott Haldane’s Physiology and Biopolitics of the Living.” Grey Room 75 (Spring 2019): 6–35.
Timon Beyes and Jörg Metelmann, eds. The Creativity Complex. Translated by Erik Born and others. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2018.
Kurd Lasswitz, “The Universal Library.” Mithila Review: The Journal of International Science Fiction & Fantasy 9 (September 2017).
