Dr. John Hoffmann
Assistant Professor; Visiting Faculty
Business and Economics, The George L. Argyros College of Business and Economics
Email: johoffmann@chapman.edu
- Education:
- St. John's College, Bachelor of Arts
University of Chicago, Master of Arts
Johns Hopkins University, Master of Arts
Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D.
Biography
John Hoffmann is a comparatist with a particular interest in cultural contact between
Germany and Anglophone countries in the modernist period (1890-1955). His work ranges
between film and literature, and he has published articles in Film History, New Literary History, Modernism/modernity, and diacritics. He is also the author of Modernism, Aesthetics and Anthropology (Cambridge, 2025). His current project is a study of the idea of adversaries and
“adversarial culture” in German non-fiction cinema of the midcentury.
Before coming to Chapman, he held positions at the University of Konstanz and the
Philipps-Universität Marburg. His work has been supported by grants from the German
Research Foundation (DFG), the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Program in Jewish Studies,
the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Max Kade Center for Modern German
Thought, and the Modernist Studies Association, where he is the co-organizer of the
Film Studies Special Interest Group.
Books
Modernism, Aesthetics and Anthropology. New York: Cambridge, 2025.
Journal Articles
“The Volk against Fascism: Socialist Realism and the Aesthetics of Expressionism.” New Literary History 51.3 (Summer 2020): 587-614.
“Animating the Nations: Julius Pinschewer’s Anglophone Cinema.” Film History 30.3 (Fall 2018): 51-74.
“The Optics of Orientation: Walter Benjamin and Mikhail Kaufman in Moscow.” Modernism/modernity 24.4 (November 2017): 751-770.
“Kant’s Aesthetic Categories: Race in the Critique of Judgment.” diacritics 44.2 (2016): 56- 84.
Chapters in Edited Collections
“Hot Death: The Object World of Fassbinder’s Early Films.” In ReFocus: The Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Edinburgh, forthcoming.
“Grand Hotel Theory.” In Hotel Modernisms: 1890-1950, edited by Anna Despotopoulou, Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Efterpi Mitsi. London: Routledge,
2023.
“Forged Identities: Race and Nationhood 1700-2000.” In Fakes, Lies, and Forgeries: Rare Books and Manuscripts from the Arthur and Janet Freeman
Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection, edited by Earle Havens, 103-114. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, 2014.
Translations
Heide Schlüpmann, “The Discovery of Early Cinema: The Moment of ‘Silence.’” In How Film Histories Were Made, edited by Malte Hagener and Yvonne Zimmerman. Amsterdam University Press, 2023.
Victor Zhirmunsky, Rhyme (selections). The Chicago Review 57.3/4 (Winter 2013): 121-128.