Humanities Seminars Summer 2011: David Soren - Art History and the Cinema
The history of cinema owes a great debt to various artistic movements such as Romanticism, the Baroque, Symbolism, Neoclassicism, Expressionism, Cubism, the Bauhaus, and Pop Art. Professor David Soren demonstrates how such movements shaped and informed classic films like Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, George Melies's Trip to the Moon, and Busby Berkeley's Roman Scandals. He also shows how the German theater of Max Reinhardt became a major influence on the Gothic horror films of the early 1930s, such as Frankenstein and Dracula. David Soren is Regents Professor of Anthropology and Classics at the University of Arizona and holds a courtesy appointment in Art History. His B.A. is from Dartmouth and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He is a Fellow of Great Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs and also of the Johns Hopkins Schools of Advanced International Research. He has been named an Honorary Italian Citizen for his contributions to that country. He has been the subject of documentaries by the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the BBC and the Learning Channel. Dr. Soren has written or edited 12 books and more than 70 articles on archaeology, film, and dance.
