Robert Dassanowsky ’85, M.A. ‘88, Ph.D. ‘92

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Robert Dassanowsky, one of the top scholars in Austrian Studies and an internationally-recognized expert in film studies and Central European culture, has been named the newest distinguished professor from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. The CU Board of Regents will recognize Dassanowsky during its February 2021 meeting with the highest honor that the university system bestows to faculty members.

“My work as a scholar, teacher and mentor could not have come about without the basis of a UCLA education and the freedom to grow that can be found at UCCS and across the CU system. And if my voice has strengthened another in positive thought and deed, then I have continued to question and learn, as we move forward together,” Dassanowsky said.

Dassanowsky’s excellence in teaching and research started at UCLA before his arrival to UCCS in 1994 as an assistant professor of German. He now holds tenure in the departments of Visual and Performing Arts, and Languages and Cultures, and has served as chair of both departments during his career. Dassanowsky is founding director of the UCCS Film Studies since 1998 and has continued to develop the program and its professional reputation.

Dassanowsky also grew up with first-hand knowledge of the role of women in the film industry. His mother, Elfi, co-founded the Belvedere Film studio in postwar Vienna, and decades later they formed a production company in Los Angeles, and he began his second career as an independent film producer with more than two dozen short films, documentaries and feature co-productions. A voting member of the European Film Academy, Dassanowsky also directs the Elfi Von Dassanowsky Foundation, which awards grants to national and international charitable and non-profit organizations representing women in the arts, cultural and educational programs, and humanitarian efforts.

Dassanowsky’s work in eight authored/edited books, including "Austrian Cinema: A History," the first significant English language account of Austrian Film; "Phantom Empires," the first sociopolitical reading of Austrian writer and playwright Alexander Lernet-Holenia; books on Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Tarantino’s "Inglorious Basterds," and the latest, "Screening Transcendence: Film under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope 1933-1938," which examines a unique cinematic cosmopolitanism and investigates the planned Hollywood-Vienna studio co-production pact intended to promote Viennese Film and break the influence and infiltration of Nazi Germany. These and over 90 articles and book chapters have made him one of the most cited and respected film scholars for Austrian, Central European and American cinemas and their intersections with literature, philosophy and politics. He was recognized with the Decoration of Honor in Silver for Cultural Services to the Republic of Austria in 2005, served as president of the Austrian Studies Association, and has been a U.S. delegate of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2001.

Dassanowsky joined Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman as the two Colorado representatives for U.S. Professor of the Year in 2004 by the Carnegie Foundation and the Advancement of Teaching. He was elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom and ultimately recognized for his unique and multifaceted efforts as a public scholar with the CU Thomas Jefferson Award.

“We are very proud to celebrate the accomplishments and recognition Dr. Robert Dassanowsky has earned over more than two decades at UCCS,” said Chancellor Venkat Reddy. “He has been widely honored for his creative and scholarly works, his mentorship of our students and his outstanding teaching. It is a testament to Robert’s exceptional commitment to his work that he is now recognized with the highest honor granted to faculty members in the University of Colorado system.”