Elisabeth Bronfen

From 1985 until 1992, she worked as an assistant at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and wrote her doctorate on Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage novels as well as her habilitation Over Her Dead Body (1992).

Her main thesis is that a "knowledge of the uncanniness of existence"[3] remains visible in these movies despite their attempts of making sense of reality by giving the viewers a metaphorical home in the cinematic world.

From the "unfinished business"[4] of civil war in Gone with the Wind and Gangs of New York to the "choreography of battle"[5] in Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, Bronfen investigates the parallels between military and cinematic spectacle.

Therein, Bronfen proposes a reading method of the same name that is based on mapping and comparing formal aspects of cultural texts such as character constellations or political themes.

Rolf Löchel calls crossmapping a comparative method that not only uncovers intertextualities but also carves out similar concerns of texts from different media such as literature, cinema, television and painting.