NICA recommends | Thomas Elsaesser Collection – Research Archive Now Accessible Online
NICA recommends | Thomas Elsaesser Collection – Research Archive Now Accessible Online
Link: https://frontend.elsaesser.dff.film/?fbclid=IwAR1bVAtto3w4WjTDrd0F8xRCqoOwx-FSVmfhtAnjbfcWGf-CaiZqkGs99TU
Thomas Elsaesser, the first global film scholar, is considered one of the founders of film studies on both an international scale and as an independent academic discipline. His contribution as a scholar and a teacher to the preservation of film heritage has had a lasting impact on the way material and intellectual film culture is handled in archival work. The film scholar, who died in 2019, entrusted his working archive, consisting of more than 400 boxes of documents, books, videotapes, as well as digital files, with the DFF. The DFF is now gradually making this intellectual legacy available online on its own dedicated website. The foundations of the project were laid by Thomas Elsaesser during his lifetime and the DFF has sought to be in keeping with its spirit. At its launch, the website publishes a broad selection of texts from Thomas Elsaesser’s bibliography spanning more than four decades, covering topics from early cinema to media archaeology. His groundbreaking monograph on Rainer Werner Fassbinder is made accessible in its entirety. In the ensuing months and years, more materials from his archive and extensive bibliography will be published online.
The Thomas Elsaesser Collection website, which was conceived in collaboration with designer Ayham Ghraowi and developer Matt Wolff, makes it possible to discover this rich treasure trove of materials in an intuitive and accessible manner. Powerful search tools make it easy for both film scholars and film lovers to explore the extensive materials.
The design and content of the website remain in continuity with the ideas of Thomas Elsaesser, honoring his work and providing a possible answer to the question of how to present the intellectual legacy of a media historian and scholar in a digital space. The development of the website is made possible by the support of the Martin Elsaesser Foundation, of which Thomas Elsaesser was chairman until his death.
The Thomas Elsaesser Collection was originally curated, organized, and preserved by his widow, Professor Silvia Vega-Llona, before being entrusted to the DFF. In the days before his sudden death, Elsaesser had expressed the desire to establish The Thomas Elsaesser Research Center for the Arts, Film and Media Theory at the DFF, and undertook the financial and logistical planning to make it a reality. The initial concept of the website was worked out between Thomas Elsaesser himself and the designer Ayham Ghraowi, who has now brought the project to completion. The website serves as a first step towards a dedicated research center at the DFF in honor of Thomas Elsaesser’s scientific legacy, it was also made possible thanks to the professional participation of Silvia Vega-Llona