Maggie Hennefeld
216 Pillsbury Dr SE
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Maggie Hennefeld is Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of the award-winning book, "Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes" (Columbia UP, 2018), a curator of the 4-disc DVD/Blu-ray collection "Cinema's First Nasty Women" (Kino Lorber, 2022), an editor of the journal "Cultural Critique," and co-editor of two volumes, "Unwatchable" (Rutgers UP, 2019) and "Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence" (Duke UP, 2020). Her new book, "Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema" (Columbia UP, 2024) reveals the untold history of women who allegedly died from laughing too hard.
Educational Background
- Ph.D. : Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, 2014
- B.A. : Cinema Studies, Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, University of Pennsylvania, 2006
Specialties
- film and media studies
- comedy, humor, laughter
- silent cinema (especially early cinema)
- film theory and film history
- archival film curating
- feminism, affect theory, gender politics
- speculative approaches to critical thought
- media historiography and its relation to social justice