May 1, 5:00 – 6:30 PM |Online

Free |

May 1, 6:30 PM | May Day: Women and Equality, Kane Hall & Recorded

Suggested Ticket Price $5 | More info and Registration

May 2, 7:00 – 9:30 PM & May 4, 7:00 – 8:30 PM | Kane Hall

For this year’s Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, a classically trained and internationally acclaimed vocalist, composer and arranger specializing in music in the Yiddish language, will perform with accompanist Dmitri Gaskin. Through oration and art music, they will take us on a melodic journey through a variety of elements come together to shape Russell’s unique genre of Jewish musicality.

Free |

May 2 & May 4���� Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre and Online

This lecture series and colloquium advance crucial conversations on world language and literature study on the UW Seattle campus through an interdisciplinary, multi-departmental speaker series focused on issues of race, identity, colonialism, and migration within a broad European context. These trans- or postnational, transcultural, and multilingual approaches to national literatures offer effective frameworks for undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to grasp the intersectional complexity of power configurations in literary and visual cultures.

Free |

May 3 – May 7 | Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre

The Producing Artist Laboratory is a recent development in the UW School of Drama’s production structure. Student-artists require many outlets to practice their craft from their first year to graduation. The Producing Artists Lab is an opportunity to share some of these exciting exploratory or developmental projects with the public. Audience members may see a wider range in the levels of production and often more vigorous artistic risk-taking in these Lab productions.

In the Blood was directed by graduate directing students Kate Drummond and Nick O’Leary. In this modern-day riff on The Scarlet Letter, a homeless mother of five lives with her kids on the tough streets of the inner city. Her eldest child is teaching her how to read and write, but the letter “A” is, so far, the only letter she knows. Her five kids are played by adult actors who double as five other people in her life. While Hester’s kids fill her life with joy—lovingly comical moments amid the harsh world of poverty—the adults with whom she comes into contact only hold her back.

Content Warning: The play contains mature subject matter and themes, including explicit language, violence, and sexual content.

$10 – $20 Tickets |

May 4, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

Violist and composer Melia Watras presents a celebration of the viola with an evening of world premieres composed by UW faculty, students, and alumni. The program includes UW faculty composer Joël- François Durand’s Geister weider… pour alto solo (written for Watras), a collaborative composition by Watras and her former student Madeline Warner, and four pieces commissioned by Watras especially for this event, by UW students and alums Sandesh Nagaraj, Jonathan Rodriguez, Breana Tavaglione, and Wei Yang. Watras in joined onstage by vocalist Carrie Henneman Shaw and violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim.

$10 – $20 Tickets |

May 5 – May 6 | Intellectual House

This symposium brings people together to share knowledge on topics such as traditional foods, plants and medicines; environmental and food justice; food sovereignty/security; health and wellness; and treaty rights. This event serves to foster dialogue and build collaborative networks as Native people strive to sustain cultural food practices and preserve healthy relationships with the land, water, and all living things.

This year’s theme is “Health, Healing & Resilience”.

Free for UW Students |

May 6, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

From visionary theater and opera director Peter Sellars comes his most personal work to date, a staging of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro (The Tears of Saint Peter). This profoundly moving Renaissance masterpiece depicts the grief and remorse of the Apostle Peter after he disavows knowledge of Jesus Christ on the day of his arrest and crucifixion. Sung by 21 a cappella singers of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lagrime is refracted through Mr. Sellars signature contemporary lens, suggesting a powerful allegory about facing our past head-on in order to forge a more fulfilling future.

Free |

Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to��.��

The Henry Art Gallery: Exhibitions on view through April

Ongoing |

The Henry Art Gallery, located on the UW campus, is internationally recognized for bold and challenging exhibitions, for pushing the boundaries of contemporary art and culture, and for being the first to premiere new works by established and emerging artists. Through individual experiences with art, it inspires visitors to upend their expectations and discover surprising connections.

Admission to the Henry Art Gallery is free until June, and it is open Saturdays and Sundays, 10 AM – 5 PM. Check out exhibitions that are closing soon:

• Illustration Injustice: The Power of Print & We Own Our Words: Through May 9
• Bambitchell: Bugs & Beasts Before the Law: Through May 9
• Plural Possibilities & the Female Body: Through May 9
• A Dialogue Between Jean-François Millet and Jeanne Dunning: Through May 30

It Takes A Village with Dr. Cornel West

April 29, 6:00 PM |

Join NAAM, in partnership with UW Communication, UW Race & Equity Initiative, UW Department of Philosophy, and Seattle University Office of Diversity & Inclusion, for an evening with Dr. Cornel West discussing “Critical Thinking and the Cultivation of Your True Self”.

Nationally-renowned public intellectual and award-winning author Dr. Cornel West, professor of Harvard University, will join Dr. Ralina Joseph, NAAM’s scholar-in-residence, for a riveting discussion as part of the “It Takes a Village” series.

This event will also feature performances from award winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, community activist, social entrepreneur, and educator, Ben Hunter.

From ‘Permit Patty’ to ‘Karen’: Black Rearticulations of Racial Humor

April 28, 3:30 – 5:00 PM |

In the third COM Spring colloquium sponsored by the Department of Communication,��Dr. Raven Maragh-Lloyd will discuss two related case studies to explore how Black publics online have shifted racial humor as a resistance strategy to respond to white femininity and its deployment of the police state.

To understand how Black publics use their online networks to respond to white femininity and the police state, Dr. Maragh-Lloyd conducted a textual analysis from a collected sample of 1,000 tweets and Instagram posts with the hashtags #PermitPatty and #Karen between June and September 2020. Ultimately, she argues that these resistance strategies rearticulate the vestiges of innocence that the U.S. has conferred on white women, often at the expense of Black individuals, and particularly children. This rearticulation of innocence forces cultural conversations about Black bodies as historically criminalized and places Black people–both the living and the dead–at the helm of their own stories on and offline.

2020-2021 WISIR Series: Teaching the Movement: Reflections on Protests, Abolition, and Radical Scholarship

April 30, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM |��

Global Literatures & Global Literacies: Teaching Texts, Old and New

April 30, 1:30 – 4:30 PM |��

“Global Literatures & Global Literacies: Teaching Texts, Old and New” is a symposium to advance thinking about the current and future teaching of literature, as well as a new literature major, at UW.��It is also an opportunity for networking and collaboration among faculty members whose teaching emphasizes trans-national, trans-regional, trans-historical, and/or trans-cultural orientations. Organized by��Naomi Sokoloff (Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Civilation), Gordana Crnković (Professor, Slavic Languages & Literature), and Gary Handwerk (Professor, Comparative History of Ideas), the symposium is open to all and will be hosted on Zoom.

The event is co-sponsored by Asian Languages & Literature, Cinema & Media Studies, Classics, Comparative History of Ideas, English, French & Italian Studies, Germanics, Near Eastern Languages & Civilization, Scandinavian Studies, Slavic Languages & Literatures, and Spanish & Portuguese Studies.

Looking for more?

Check out UWAA’s Stronger Together web page for��more digital engagement opportunities.

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to��.��

Monsen Photography Lecture: Deborah Willis

February 18, 5:00 – 6:00 PM |��

In “Staying Engaged: Social Protest, Migrations, and Responses in Art,” sponsored by the Henry Art Gallery,��Deborah Willis will draw upon her prolific career as a photographer and a scholar of the history of photography as she addresses how we stay engaged in contemporary social protest and justice movements through the medium of photography. The presentation will be followed by a conversation with Sylvia Wolf, John S. Behnke Director of the Henry.

Meany On Screen:��Martha Graham Dance Company

February 19 – 26 |��

Comprised of the “most skilled and powerful dancers you can ever hope to see” (The Washington Post), the Martha Graham Dance Company performs Graham’s iconic and revered work��, hosted by the Meany Center. In , Martha Graham Dance Company’s artistic director Janet Eilber and dancer Natasha Diamond-Walker will be in conversation with��Meany Center��Executive and Artistic Director Michelle Witt and David Rahbee (Senior Artist-In-Residence, Director of Orchestras and Chair of Orchestral Conducting), to discuss the collaboration between Martha Graham and Aaron Copland — one of the greatest artistic relationships of all time — and what their partnership teaches us about the interdependence of creative collaboration.

The Anthology as Meta-Syllabus: Combining German and Anglophone Approaches to Canon Studies

February 19, 1:30 – 2:30 PM |��

In this talk, sponsored by the Department of Germanics,��Whit Frazier Peterson of the University of Stuttgart will draw on the work of German and English language academics to look at the way the remediation of primary texts through anthologies has created “meta-syllabi,” or anthologies that inform university studies of the canon. These anthologies go a long way towards deciding which texts individual lecturers use in their classes, and in their remediated state, they also largely direct the way society understands the dialogue between culturally canonized texts. By analyzing canon cultural studies through the lens of media studies (and vice versa), this talk will establish a dialogue between Anglophone and German approaches to canon theory.

2021 Critical Issues Lecture Series: Eva Barto

February 19, 12:00 PM |��

Eva Barto, who teaches at The School of Fine Art in Lyon, will be presenting this lecture in the Critical Issues Lecture Series,��organized by the School of Art + Art History + Design in collaboration with the Henry Art Gallery.��The general public is invited to join degree-seeking individuals studying fine art in order to share ideas and raise questions about contemporary art.��

Next in the series:

• February 26, 12:00 PM: Divya Mehra
• March 5, 12:00 PM: to be announced

Free |

Looking for more?

Check out UWAA’s Stronger Together web page for��more digital engagement opportunities.

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to��.��

Velvet Sweatshops and Algorithmic Cruelty: Labor in the Global Tech Economy

One Nation, Many Stories–30 years of German Unity

October 10, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM |

October 3, 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of German unification. While formal unification took barely a year, it turns out that unity takes generations. Continuing differences in living standards, pensions, political orientations, or democratic values indicate that the process of unifying former East and West Germany is a multi-generational project. Have Germans dealt adequately with their separate pasts in order to craft a joint 21st-century political identity? Three distinguished experts on German politics, society, and culture, Marianne Birthler,��Michael Zürn, and Joyce��Mushaben,��will discuss this and other questions.

Free |

Keywords

View at your leisure |

Looking for more?

Check out UWAA’s Stronger Together web page for��more digital engagement opportunities.

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to��.��

Sacred Breath: Indigenous Writing and Storytelling

May 7, 6:30 – 8:00 PM���� Zoom Event

This event features writer and poet��Sara Marie Ortiz��(Acoma Pueblo) and��Gene Tagaban��(Cherokee, Tlingit, Filipino).

Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.

Free, register for access��|��

Silent Reading Party

May 6 and 13,�� 6:00 PM | Online Streaming

Department of Dance Music Director Paul Moore has taken a lead role in the Stranger’s reading parties, as their resident musician. Moore plays exquisitely soft piano music for you and everyone else in the party—everything from Erik Satie to Radiohead to Duke Ellington. Take a look at actor and SNL alum Julia Sweeney‘s (BA, International Studies, ’82) , where she praises Moore’s work . . . twice!

Choose your price |��.

Quick Talk:��The 2015 Hungarian Drama “Son of Saul” and a New Chapter in Films About the Holocaust

May��5, 4:00 PM | Zoom

The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies invites��Dr.��Richard Block, professor of Germanics at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý, for a 20-minute “quick talk,” to explore how��László Nemes’s Son of Saul responds to the challenges put forth some two decades earlier by Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Specifically, Block will discuss how Son of Saul defies Lanzmann’s dismissal of any attempt to represent the Shoah and offers instead “a biographical fable.”

The talk will be followed by a Q&A session, with questions submitted via www.slido.com and moderated by a staff member.

Free, please register for access��|

Outsider interpretations of open scientific data and their impact on policy

May 6, 4:00 – 5:00 PM |

Throughout the science-policymaking landscape, ‘open’ has become a ubiquitous buzzword. After decades of political work to make open access the de jure standard for publicly-funded science, alongside the growing visibility of open and citizen science initiatives, open data is poised as the next big step in ‘opening up’ and accelerating science. Major initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud, tied to a policy objective clearly aiming to ‘democratize’ science thoroughly, forecast a potential policy landscape of compulsorily open publicly-funded research data in the near future. In this talk��Luis Reyes-Galindo, independent scholar in Mexico,��will argue that in order to understand the possible benefits (and drawbacks) of such open data initiatives, a deeper reflection is needed on what ought to be regarded as unambiguously legitimate interpretations of scientific data.

Free, register for access|

Labor On-line: Virtual seminar Series, Spring 2020

Tuesdays at 1:15 PM and Wednesdays at 6:00 PM

This Spring,��Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies��hosts two weekly online seminars with a wide range of labor scholars and activists. These sessions are free and open to the public.

Free��|��

This week’s����seminar:
Hosted by the��UW Tacoma Labor Solidarity Project

May 6 – Labor Wars of the Pacific Northwest
6:00 PM | Zoom:��
Presented by:��David Jepsen, Educator, Historian, Author, Film Maker

Upcoming����seminar:
Hosted by Labor Studies faculty at UW Bothell

May 12 –��Social Movement Unionism from the Grassroots
1:30 PM | Zoom:��
Presented by: Dan Berger, Professor, UW Bothell

Meany Center Curtain Speeches

Ongoing | Meany Center and

#BurkeFromHome Trivia Night: Now starting at 7pm

Every Friday, 7:00 PM������Virtual Event

Join the Burke Museum online on Fridays at 7 PM for #BurkeFromHome Trivia. The popular Burke Trivia Night is back—this time online to practice social distancing while having loads of fun! Get your nerd on with natural history and culture-themed trivia.

BYOB, snacks, and slippers!

Free, please register for access����

Staying home? Here’s what to watch

Ongoing | Your favorite streaming service

Looking for ways to stay entertained while staying at home?��If you’ve already binged all the shows in your Netflix queue, fear not. Faculty in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies��have gathered television and film recommendations to fit every mood.

Looking for more?

Check out UWAA’s Stronger Together web page for��more digital engagement opportunities.

Recent notable books by ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý faculty members look at gentrification and inequity in a New York neighborhood, skin lighteners though history, female agency in Arthurian legend and biographical epitaphs in China across many centuries.

UW Bothell’s Christian Anderson explores gentrification of a NYC neighborhood in ‘Urbanism Without Guarantees’

The gentrification of a single street in New York City’s Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood is the scene for this in-depth ethnographic study of urban transformation by , associate professor in the UW Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts.

“” was published in March by University of Minnesota Press. The book looks at how residents work to preserve the quality of life of their neighborhood and both define and maintain their values of urban living, taking actions that connect their daily lives to broader structural inequities, for better and worse.

Notes from the publisher call it “a unique more-than-capitalist take on urban dynamics,” adding, “Examining how residents are pulled into these systems of gentrification, Anderson proposes new ways to think and act critically and organize for transformation of a place — in actions that local residents can start to do wherever they are.”

For more information, contact Anderson at cmander@uw.edu.

***

Lynn Thomas studies skin lighteners through history in new book

Skin lighteners have been used by consumers for centuries even while being opposed by medical professionals, consumer health advocates and antiracist thinkers and activists.

In her new book, UW history professor traces the changing meanings of skin color, in South Africa and beyond, from precolonial times to the present.

“” was published in January by Duke University Press.

Thomas shows how “the use of skin lighteners and experiences of skin color have been shaped by slavery, colonialism and segregation, as well as consumer capitalism, visual media, notions of beauty, and protest politics,” publisher’s notes said.

Calling the book “nothing short of a tour de force,” one reviewer wrote: “Carefully attending to the complex politics of race and color that are grounded in skin, Thomas at once provides a vibrant history of South Africa and a global history of commodity, beauty and the body. This landmark study sets a new standard in the field.”

For more information contact Thomas at lynnmt@uw.edu.

***

Remembered lives: Historian Patricia Ebrey co-edits book on Chinese funerary biographies

Funerary biographies are epitaphs engraved on stone and placed in a grave. They usually focus on the deceased’s life, words and deeds. Tens of thousands of these biographies survive from Imperial China, providing a glimpse into the lives of many people not documented by more conventional sources.

“,” co-edited by UW history professor , is an anthology of translations of such funerary biographies covering nearly 2,000 years — from the through the 19^th century. The book was published in January by ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý Press.

Editing the volume with Ebrey were of California State University and of the University of Virginia.

Biographies in the anthology, UW Press notes say, were chosen for their value as teaching material on Chinese history, literature, and women’s studies as well as world history. “Because they include revealing details about personal conduct, families, local conditions, and social, cultural, and religious practices, these epitaphs illustrate ways of thinking and the realities of daily life.”

Ebrey is the author or editor of several books on China, most recently “Emperor Huizong,” in 2014.

For more information, contact Ebrey at ebrey@uw.edu.

***

Annegret Oehme of Germanics publishes book on adaptations of Arthurian tale

, an assistant professor in the Department of Germanics, has published a new book about adaptations and translations of , a centuries-old tale describing the adventures of an Arthurian knight, across different languages and media.

“” was published in January by De Gruyter.

The publication explores two previously dismissed pre-modern adaptations of the Middle High German 1215 verse-novel “Wigalois,” and their different approaches to female agency in comparison with the original text and later Yiddish and German versions, in the 14^th and 15^th centuries respectively.

Read more on the department . For more information, contact Oehme at oehme@uw.edu.

***

Other book notes:

Epilogue on ecocriticism: , UW associate professor of French, has written the epilogue for a new book that discusses the relationship between contemporary ecological thought and early modern French literature.

“,” edited by Pauline Goul of Vassar and Phillip Usher of New York University, was published in March by Amsterdam University Press.

Publisher’s notes say the volume “foregrounds not how ecocriticism renews our understanding of a literary corpus, but rather how that corpus causes us to rethink or to nuance contemporary eco-theory.”

Read more on the French & Italian Studies Department .

***

What are you reading? UW Notebook seeking ‘comfort reading’ recommendations

Though faculty and staff continue to work hard during the coronavirus shutdown, some of us may also have a little more time on our hands for reading. Sometimes an old favorite book can be a comfort.

What are you reading to relax these days? What books would you recommend to fellow faculty and staff as comfort reading?

For me, it’s a re-read of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Two Towers” and classic science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury in “The Illustrated Man.” And then maybe an epic novel by Herman Wouk — or even a midsummer revisit to “Charlotte’s Web.”

UW faculty and staff colleagues: Email me at kellep@uw.edu and I’ll mention some favorite books in subsequent book stories, and possibly on social media.UW Notebook.

Dance Majors Concert

March 6 – 10 | Meany Studio Theater

$10 for UW students |

is a ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý professor of Germanics and editor of the recent book, “.” He answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.

Q: Here we have a book of interviews with film director Werner Herzog. You him in 2013. What led you to study Herzog and to produce these two books?

A: The first book was directly inspired by “,” Herzog’s documentary about a man who lived among grizzly bears in Alaska, and was finally devoured by one of them. After watching that movie, I launched into all Herzog’s films and for various reasons ended up writing a book about the documentaries. I also read some of the many wonderful interviews that Herzog has given throughout his long career — more than 1,000 so far. The interview turns out to be the key genre for understanding the director and his work.

Q: Conversations with Herzog were collected in book form for “Herzog on Herzog” in 2002. What does he explore or explain here that sets these interviews apart from previous conversations? What new or different ground is broken?

A: “Herzog on Herzog” claims to be a single retrospective interview conducted in 2002. My collection is different. It brings together 25 of the best interviews that Herzog has given from 1968 to the present. Each interview is charged with the energy of a new release, and each shows Herzog at a different point in his career. More than half of the interviews have been translated for this volume and are available in English for the very first time. Several come from Herzog’s production archive, and three of them were previously unpublished. Even hard-core Herzog fans will make discoveries here.

Q: Herzog, a storyteller, blurs the lines between truth and invention in his filmmaking. Does he do the same in press interviews? If so, how and toward what end?

A: Yes, he does. That’s what I learned from this project. Interviews are at once improvised and rehearsed, spontaneous and scripted. Reading through these hundreds of interviews, I began to notice patterns — especially repetitions in the use of certain words, phrases, sentences, and in a few cases entire paragraphs. What does it tell us about Herzog that he repeats himself almost verbatim over the span of many years? Is he answering questions mechanically, or what’s going on?

There are many different uses of repetition, and their effects vary. In some situations, they work to suggest the terms of a film’s reception, how critics and readers should talk about it. In other situations, repetitions help shape and reinforce certain aspects of Herzog’s public image, how we imagine his behavior and personality. This book, uniquely, shows how scripting and rehearsal in the interviews continues the process of scripting and staging in Herzog’s films.

Q: Wildman actor Klaus Kinski often appears in these pages. What will readers learn about him, and about his relationship with Herzog, in this volume?

A: Theirs is a very well-known relationship, one of conflict and collaboration, of mutual love and hate. Much of it is legend, part of it deliberately so — “We planned each other’s murders,” and stuff like that. Some of it is hilarious. The book adds details that will be new to readers who don’t have access to either French or German — the interviews on “,” “,” “” and “,” for example.

More importantly, though, it shows the process of mythmaking in action, how Herzog talks about Kinski, uses him for an effect, and how that effect changes over time, especially after Kinski’s death.

Q: Finally, after all this work, what is your personal view of Herzog? What will be his legacy?

A: I came away even more impressed with Herzog and his work than I was before, which is not what I had expected. As a scholar I just assume that I’ll gradually become disenchanted by what I’m studying. It’s an occupational hazard. But this stuff took hold of me and never let me go.

As for Herzog’s legacy, I suppose it depends on what happens to “film” over time and what we value about moving images in the future. But if the world ended today, I’d say this: Herzog made his greatest contribution in the area of documentary cinema. I’m thinking of films like “,” “,” “,” “Grizzly Man” and many others.

He also practically defined what it meant to be an auteur in the late 20^th century, moving as he did between fiction and documentary, blurring the distinction between his life and his films, and turning himself into an elaborate, riveting myth.

• “Werner Herzog: Interviews” was published by University Press of Mississippi as part of its Conversations with Filmmakers Series, and will be available in an e-reading format soon.

is a ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý associate professor of Germanics and author of the new book “.” Herzog is a highly regarded and controversial German filmmaker whose documentaries include “,” (2005), “” (2007), and “” (2010). Ames answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.

What is the central concept behind “Ferocious Reality: Documentary according to Werner Herzog”?

Herzog is known for how much he hates documentaries. And yet, he has made 30 of them, with several more in the works. The book sets out to explore this contradiction, how Herzog works both within and against the documentary tradition, and how his supposed hatred of documentary becomes, in effect, a creative dynamic.

You write that Herzog “engages documentary on his own terms.” What are those terms, and how do they differ from other documentary approaches?

For decades, Herzog has promoted his own alternative notion of truth in documentary cinema, one which he likes to call “the ecstatic truth.” By that he means a poetic truth which is based on stylization and aesthetic experience (and not simply found in the world by virtue of recording or mere observation). And yet, in making such claims, Herzog uses a language that is largely beholden to him. That’s also what I mean by engaging documentary “on his own terms.”

Herzog is a filmmaker who loves to talk about his work — he has given more than 800 interviews — a characteristic which is great for fans and critics (especially because he likes to say outrageous things and he has such a wonderful voice), but one which also becomes a problem for scholars. I couldn’t begin to write this book until I had found a way to separate my thoughts and my language about the films from what Herzog has to say about them and about documentary more generally.

And what I found, then, was that Herzog’s approach and its difference from that of other filmmakers is really a difference of degree and not in kind. All documentary can do is stylize. Herzog just embraces this idea and gives it a swagger that sets him apart.

Does Herzog pre-stage scenes and rehearse performers in his documentaries? And does that stretch the definition of documentary?

Herzog is known for staging scenes, for leading people with scripted bits of dialogue, and for shooting multiple takes (especially with films made in multiple-language versions). And then he flaunts this particular aspect of his documentaries — in interviews, for example — so that the act of filmmaking itself becomes a type of performance and a topic of discussion among fans and critics.

But Herzog’s films also involve plenty of unscripted moments, improvised scenes and chance events. What we have, then, is a playful mix of elements — encounter and artifice, observation and stylization — a mix that doesn’t necessarily stretch the boundaries of documentary but one that certainly calls attention to them and that raises certain questions about what we usually just assume or expect of documentary.

You write that, although he refuses to align himself with the documentary tradition, “Herzog may be the most influential filmmaker whose contribution to documentary is nowhere discussed in the major studies and standard histories of the form.” Why is that?

To put it bluntly, Herzog is German and his films don’t fit the critical mold that earlier generations of scholars carved out for documentary, particularly in the English-speaking world. What is more, Herzog clearly takes pleasure in breaking this particular mold; it is an integral part of his identity as a filmmaker.

The good news is, today, scholars tend to be relaxed about documentary’s generic boundaries (not policing them), curious about the form’s cultural variations, and open to its creative possibilities.

Finally, what do you think Herzog’s effect will be on the future of documentary cinema?

I think Herzog and his films will continue to inspire new generations of filmmakers, including those who work in documentary.

But what happens when “documentary cinema” moves from the theater to the Internet? Will Herzog’s work resonate in an online environment? The larger question, going forward, is how the web may affect our understanding of “documentary” and of the “cinema” more generally.

• “Ferocious Reality: Documentary According to Werner Herzog” was published in October 2012 by University of Minnesota Press. Learn more about Herzog at his .