US visit to research Kubrik- possibly the greatest post-war American Film Director
Dr Nathan Abrams, a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Bangor University’s School of Creative Studies & Media, has won a prestigious highly-competitive, and internationally-recognised Dorot Foundation Fellowship at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin.
The Fellowship provides financial support, office space and access to the University’s facilities, in order to conduct research on Jewish authors and on relevant cultural topics using the Center’s collections.
Dr. Abrams will be using the archives in order to work on his Arts & Humanities Research Council and British Academy funded project on Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), perhaps the greatest post-war American director.
He is investigating the intellectual, religious, ethnic and moral foundations upon which the intellectual and aesthetic vision of Kubrick, a seminal figure in post-war film, were established. He is also exploring the impact of personal experience upon intellectual outlook to illustrate the presence of substantive Jewish content and thinking within Kubrick’s films even though they are seemingly empty of ethnic reference and where the deliberate suppression of the explicit reference to Jewish culture and historical experience appears evident.
In particular, Dr Abrams will be looking at the records of the novelist, biographer, and scriptwriter Diane Johnson who co-wrote the screenplay for The Shining (1980) with Stanley Kubrick. He will also be consulting the files of author Anthony Burgess who wrote the novel which became the controversial and banned film A Clockwork Orange (1972).
Dr. Abrams said, “I am delighted to have won this award. Since the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center holds these valuable archival materials relating to Stanley Kubrick, it will be vital to expanding the scope of my research.”
Further info. about the Center can be found here: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/about/mission/
Publication date: 19 June 2013