I am a UQ postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Communication and Arts.
During 2012-2015 I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Modernism Studies in Australia (UNSW). I have previously taught at the University of Sussex, the University of Brighton, and the University of Copenhagen (where I was a Danish government scholar in 2010-2011).
I am the author of Politics as Form in Lars von Trier: A Post-Brechtian Reading (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), which was reissued in paperback in 2015.
I have co-edited (with Mark Steven) a book on The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015). The book includes original contributions from renowned scholars amongst them, the philosopher and filmmaker Alexander Kluge, Fredric Jameson, Sylvie Rollet, Andrew Horton, Asbjørn Grønstad, Robert Sinnerbrink, Julian Murphet, Caroline Eades and many more.
My research is at the interface of film theory, World cinema, modernism, and politics and representation. I have a particular interest in early film theory and the ways that it can help us rethink present debates. My current project challenges Bertolt Brecht’s reception in film studies and reassesses his importance by shedding light on his writings on the film medium, and investigating the currency of his work in World Cinema.
Some of my forthcoming publications are: ‘The Dialectics of Cruelty: Rethinking Artaudian Cinema’ (Cinema Journal 55:4, 2016); ‘Realism is to Think Historically: Overlapping Elements in Brechtian and Lukácsian Theories of Realism’, Ian Aitken (ed) The Major Realist Film Theorists: An Anthology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016); ‘“The Gestus of Showing”: Brecht, Tableau and Early Cinema in Angelopoulos’ Political Period’, in Koutsourakis, A., Steven, Mark., (eds) The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015); ‘John Cassavetes: The Ultimate Hero of American Independent Cinema’, in John Berra (ed) Directory of World Cinema: American Independent 3 (Bristol: Intellect, 2015), while I am also working on book chapters on Aki Kaurismäki’s proletarian trilogy (for an edited collection edited by Thomas Austin), and the student films of Lars von Trier (for a collection edited by Rex Buttler and David Denny).
Book Chapter: Realism is to think historically: overlapping elements in Lukácsian and Brechtian theories of realism
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2016). Realism is to think historically: overlapping elements in Lukácsian and Brechtian theories of realism. In Ian Aitken (Ed.), The Major Realist Film Theorists: A Critical Anthology (pp. 123-138) Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.
Journal Article: The dialectics of cruelty: rethinking Artaudian cinema
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2016) The dialectics of cruelty: rethinking Artaudian cinema. Cinema Journal, 55 3: 65-89. doi:10.1353/cj.2016.0027
Book Chapter: Introduction: Angelopoulos and the Lingua Franca of modernism
Koutsourakis, Angelos and Mark, Steven (2015). Introduction: Angelopoulos and the Lingua Franca of modernism. In Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven (Ed.), The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (pp. 1-19) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Revisiting Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema
(2015–2016) UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Brecht in India: The Poetics and Politics of Transcultural Theatre
(2018) Doctor Philosophy
The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos
The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos. Edited by Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
Politics as form in Lars von Trier: a post-Brechtian reading
Koutsourakis, Angelos Politics as form in Lars von Trier: a post-Brechtian reading. New York, NY, United States: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2016). Realism is to think historically: overlapping elements in Lukácsian and Brechtian theories of realism. In Ian Aitken (Ed.), The Major Realist Film Theorists: A Critical Anthology (pp. 123-138) Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.
Introduction: Angelopoulos and the Lingua Franca of modernism
Koutsourakis, Angelos and Mark, Steven (2015). Introduction: Angelopoulos and the Lingua Franca of modernism. In Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven (Ed.), The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (pp. 1-19) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
The Gestus of Showing: Brecht, Tableau, and Early Cinema in Angelopoulos’ Political Period (1970-80)
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2015). The Gestus of Showing: Brecht, Tableau, and Early Cinema in Angelopoulos’ Political Period (1970-80). In Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven (Ed.), The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (pp. 64-79) Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2014). Brecht and Film. In Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (pp. 63-68) London & New York: Taylor & Francis.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2014). Symptomatic Reading. In Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (pp. 464-469) London & New York: Taylor & Francis.
The dialectics of cruelty: rethinking Artaudian cinema
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2016) The dialectics of cruelty: rethinking Artaudian cinema. Cinema Journal, 55 3: 65-89. doi:10.1353/cj.2016.0027
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2015) Review: Ian Aitken (2012) Lukácsian film theory and cinema: a study of Georg Lukács’ writing on film 1913-1971, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 272 pp.. Film Philosophy, 19 19-24.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2015) The Crisis of the Individual as a Precept of Political Cinema: Kuhle Wampe (1932) and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Film Criticism, 39 3: 26-47.
Utilizing the ideological antiquity: rethinking Brecht and film theory
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2015) Utilizing the ideological antiquity: rethinking Brecht and film theory. Monatshefte, 107 2: 242-269. doi:10.3368/m.107.2.242
German Cinema--Terror and Trauma: Cultural Memory since 1945. Thomas Elsaesser
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2014) German Cinema--Terror and Trauma: Cultural Memory since 1945. Thomas Elsaesser. Affirmations: of the Modern, 2 1: 155-164.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2013) History as transition: Brecht's Historisierung in Straub/Huillet's Not Reconciled (1965) and Angelopoulos' The Hunters (1977). Studies in European Cinema, 9 2-3: 169-179. doi:10.1386/seci.9.2-3.169_1
Politics and open-ended dialectics in Lars von Trier's Dogville: A Post-Brechtian Critique
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2013) Politics and open-ended dialectics in Lars von Trier's Dogville: A Post-Brechtian Critique. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 11 3: 334-353. doi:10.1080/17400309.2012.750537
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2012) "You want to Wake up to Free yourself of the Image of Europa. But it is not Possible". Lars von Trier's critique of the European narrative of progress in his Europa trilogy. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 20 4: 517-535. doi:10.1080/14782804.2012.737666
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2012) Cinema of the Body: The Politics of Performativity in Lars von Trier's Dogville and Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, 3 84-108.
Great Directors: Shirley Clarke
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2012) Great Directors: Shirley Clarke. Senses of Cinema, 65 .
Specters of Brecht in Dogme 95: Are Brecht and Realism Necessarily Antithetical?
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2012) Specters of Brecht in Dogme 95: Are Brecht and Realism Necessarily Antithetical?. The Brecht Yearbook, 37 40-61.
Brecht Today: Interview with Alexander Kluge
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2011) Brecht Today: Interview with Alexander Kluge. Film-Philosophy, 15 1: 220-228.
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2011) From Post-Brechtian Performance to Post-Brechtian Cinema: Shirley Clarke's adaptation of The Living Theatre's Production of The Connection. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 7 2: 141-154. doi:10.1386/padm.7.2.141_1
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2010) The persistence or dialectics or the desire for history in Lars von Trier's Europa and Theo Angelopoulos' The Suspended Step of the Stork. Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media, 33 1: 93-106.
John Cassavetes: the first Dogme director?
Koutsourakis, Angelos (2009) John Cassavetes: the first Dogme director?. Bright Lights Film Journal, 63 .
Revisiting Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema
(2015–2016) UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Brecht in India: The Poetics and Politics of Transcultural Theatre
(2018) Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors: