Luis Trenker – (Dis-)Conitiuities of a transalpine media brand

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Daniel Winkler
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 493785391

Wider Research Context / Theoretical Framework: Our project centres around Luis Trenker (1892-1990), a popular actor, director, producer, and author in Germany, Austria, and Italy, who has influenced the imaginary of the Alpine region since the 1920s. The project considers Trenker to be a tightly knitted phenomenon of discourse, creating his own myths, which operate beyond the socio-political and medial changes of the 20th century. With regard to market research, Trenker is recognised as a transalpine media brand with multiple activities and networks operating in the background. The project hence aims at approaching Trenker, superficially an easily categorizable popular persona in media, from a new perspective, thus shedding light on the paradoxes, changes, and continuities of an ambivalent modernity. Hypotheses / Research Questions / Objectives: The project aims at providing a systematic analysis of Trenker’s work as well as of Trenker as a popular persona in media. The analysis will center around the three pillars of Trenker’s creative achievements, i.e. popular literature, film, and TV-series. A private collection, which so far has been inaccessible for research, will provide additional material for the project. The following key questions have been developed at the interface of Eco-criticism, transnationality, commemorative, and masculinity research: How has Trenker as a transalpine brand evolved? Which political and medial (dis)continuities can be found between the inter-war period, fascism, and the economic miracle of post-war Europe? How should the brand be approached with regard to the negation of transnationality and the suppression of political conflicts? Approach / Methods: The project argues that Trenker can stand exemplarily for other popular personae in media, who manage to generate attention and maintain their brand identity despite socio-political and medial changes through continuous adaption. Close-reading, text and media analyses, archival work and historical contextualisation will be employed in order to develop a model for multi-perspective analysis, which will allow Trenker to be examined from contrasting perspectives. Level of Originality / Innovation: In contrast to Leni Riefenstahl and Arnold Fanck – with whom Trenker established his career – there is not a single academic monograph on the latter. Existing research focuses on Trenker in the context of Fanck’s mountain films and his cinematic successes under the NS-regime. This project, however, aims to provide an innovative perspective on Trenker, spanning epochs, countries, and types of media. The analytical model developed within this project will be applicable for further research on other popular personae in media.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, Italy, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Francesco Bono; Kamaal Haque; Dr. Eva Pfanzelter; Professor Dr. Christian Quendler; Noa Steimatsky