Christina Gerhardt


Christina Gerhardt is an author, academic and journalist. She has written on a range of subjects, including the environment, film and critical theory. She has been awarded grants from the Fulbright Commission, the DAAD and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has held visiting positions at Harvard University, the Free University of Berlin, and Columbia University. Previously, she taught at the University of California at Berkeley. Her journalism has been published in Climate Progress, Grist.org, The Nation, The Progressive and the Washington Monthly.

Writing

Gerhardt has made important contributions to a number of fields, notably environmental humanities, film studies and critical theory.

Environmental Humanities

Professor Gerhardt is Editor-in-Chief of , the quarterly journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, published by Oxford University Press. Gerhardt has written about walking and experiential learning, civic engagement and citizen science; about human-animal-environment entanglement; about petro-cultures and petro-landscapes, e.g. plastic and the Pacific; about sea level rise and islands; and about future shorelines. She also uses site specific public art installations to foster civic engagement. She has led walking tours, with both classes and the public, revealing the past histories hidden in the urban landscape, considering how the present day environment came to be shaped, and imagining possible future geographies.

Film Studies

Gerhardt has written about new wave cinemas of the long sixties, including feminist and political cinema, about the representation of the Red Army Faction in film, about New German Cinema and the Berlin School, and about directors ranging from Helke Sander and Harun Farocki to Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hito Steyerl.

Critical Theory

Gerhardt has published on critical theory and on Theodor W. Adorno. Her writings examine the concept of nature and of animals in the writings of the Frankfurt School's first generation. She has published articles on Adorno and nature; on nature in Adorno and Kracauer; on animals and compassion in the writings of Adorno, Horkheimer and Schopenhauer; and on animals in Adorno, Cixous, Derrida and Levinas.

Awards

Books