The memoirs of the pioneering Danish silent film star Asta Nielsen in English translation for the first time, with scholarly introduction and annotations. From her explosive screen debut in The Abyss (1910) through her "scandalous" fourth marriage at age 89, the Danish actress Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) was a darling of fans and the press, a global star without parallel in the silent era. So famous in Germany that she was known simply as "die Asta," during her two decades of active filmmaking Nielsen also published about her career, her impoverished childhood, her breakthrough into film, the price of fame, and her interactions with the German film industry. In 1938 Nielsen returned to Denmark, where she published her memoirs in two volumes in 1945-46, expanding on her earlier writings. This carefully crafted, colorful text offers eyewitness insights into early European film, Nielsen's star persona, and the challenges of stardom in Germany in the tumultuous period before World War II. Yet although they have appeared in multiple Danish, German, and Russian editions, the memoirs have never been published in English until now. Nielsen's work has enduring value for transnational film history, and the recent growth of interest in women's contributions to early film makes the time ripe for this translation. Julie K. Allen accompanies the text with a scholarly introduction and annotations, and a foreword by leading early film scholar Jennifer M. Bean frames the volume.

Through a detailed study of the circulation of European silent film in Australasia in the early twentieth century, this book challenges the historical myopia that treats Hollywood films as having always dominated global film culture. Before World War I, European silent feature films were ubiquitous in Australia and New Zealand, teaching Antipodean audiences about Continental cultures and familiarizing them with glamorous European stars, from Asta Nielsen to Emil Jannings. After the rise of Hollywood and then the shift to sound film, this history-and its implications for cross-cultural exchange-was lost. Julie K. Allen recovers that history, with its flamboyant participants, transnational currents, innovative genres, and geopolitical complications, bringing it all vividly to life. Making ground-breaking use of digitized Australian and New Zealand newspapers, the author reconstructs the distribution and exhibition of European silent films in the Antipodes, along the way incorporating compelling biographical sketches of the ambitious pioneers of the Australasian cinema industry. She reveals the complexity and competitiveness of the early cinema market, in a region with high consumer demand and low domestic production, and frames the dramatic shift to almost exclusively American cinema programming during World War I, contextualizing the rise of the art film in the 1920s in competition with mainstream Hollywood productions.

Why have women such as Alice Guy-Blache, the creator of narrative cinema, been written out of film history? Why have so many women working behind the scenes in film been rendered invisible and silent for so long? Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema explores the incredible contribution of women at the dawn of cinema when, surprisingly, more women were employed across the board in the film industry than they are now. It also looks at how women helped to shape the content, style of acting and development of the movie business in their roles as actors, writers, editors, cinematographers, directors and producers. In addition, we describe how women engaged with and influenced the development of cinema in their roles as audience, critics, fans, reviewers, journalists and the arbiters of morality in films. And finally, we ask when the current discrimination and male domination of the industry will give way to allow more women access to the top jobs. In addition to its historical focus on women working in film during the silent film era, the term silent also refers to the silencing and eradication of the enormous contribution that women have made to the development of the motion picture industry.

Julie Allen utilizes the lives and friendship of the Danish literary critic George Brandes (1842-1927) and the silent film star Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) to explore questions of culture and national identity in early twentieth-century Denmark. Danish culture and politics were influenced in this period by the country's deeply ambivalent relationship with Germany. Brandes and Nielsen, both of whom lived and worked in Germany for significant periods of time, were seen as dangerously cosmopolitan by the Danish public, even while they served as international cultural ambassadors for the very society that rejected them during their lifetimes. Allen argues that they were the prototypical representatives of a socially liberal and culturally modern "Danishness" (Danskhed) that Denmark itself only gradually (and later) grew into. This lively study brings its central characters to life while offering an original, thought provoking analysis of the origins and permutations of Danish modernism and Danish national identity--issues that continue to be significant in today's multi-ethnic Denmark. Icons of Danish Modernity is a book about the uneasy waves that arise when celebrities take on national symbolism, and the beginnings of this formula in the early twentieth century.

"More Than Just Fairy Tales" takes an innovative look at the classic tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Rather than viewing the stories as purely self-contained units or simplistic narratives for children, the essays in this volume employ critical reading strategies and literary theory to explore thematic connections between the tales and thereby illustrate meaningful patterns in Andersen s oeuvre.
The chapters in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including the linguistic innovations characteristic of Andersen s literary style, illustrations of Andersen s tales, film adaptations of Andersen s biography, and in-depth explorations of specific themes that play a central role in Andersen s work, such as anthropomorphism, modernity, travel, religion, art and the artist, and social criticism.
"More Than Just Fairy Tales" provides fresh insights into a seminal figure in European and international children s literature. It demonstrates that Andersen s stories have stood the test of time by addressing issues and ideas that are constants of the human condition.
This book is well suited for use in undergraduate courses in children s literature, Scandinavian and Germanic literature, and folklore. Each chapter s close, critical reading of thematically linked clusters of Andersen s tales facilitates a deeper understanding of both Andersen s most popular and lesser-known works, while teaching students how to apply critical reading strategies more generally. In more advanced courses, this approach lays the groundwork for independent research and analysis.
Julie K. Allen holds a Ph.D. in Germanic languages and literatures from Harvard University. Dr. Allen is the Paul and Renate Madsen associate professor of Danish in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, as well as an affiliate faculty member in German, Material Culture, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she also serves as director of the ScanDesign Fellowship Program. She is the author of "Icons of Danish Modernity: Georg Brandes and Asta Nielsen," co-translator of "The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen," and has published extensively on nineteenth and twentieth century German and Danish literature, culture, and film."

Julie Allen utilizes the lives and friendship of the Danish literary critic George Brandes (1842-1927) and the silent film star Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) to explore questions of culture and national identity in early twentieth-century Denmark. Danish culture and politics were influenced in this period by the country's deeply ambivalent relationship with Germany. Brandes and Nielsen, both of whom lived and worked in Germany for significant periods of time, were seen as dangerously cosmopolitan by the Danish public, even while they served as international cultural ambassadors for the very society that rejected them during their lifetimes. Allen argues that they were the prototypical representatives of a socially liberal and culturally modern "Danishness" (Danskhed) that Denmark itself only gradually (and later) grew into.

This lively study brings its central characters to life while offering an original, thought provoking analysis of the origins and permutations of Danish modernism and Danish national identity--issues that continue to be significant in today's multi-ethnic Denmark. "Icons of Danish Modernity" is a book about the uneasy waves that arise when celebrities take on national symbolism, and the beginnings of this formula in the early twentieth century.

Julie K. Allen is associate professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"Allen weaves a compelling cultural analysis about national identity and its mores. The juxtaposition of the works of Georg Brandes and Asta Nielsen is highly original and Allen's contribution offers a much-needed introduction to an English reading audience of these important cultural figures." -Karin Sanders, University of California, Berkeley