Martin Lindner received his PhD from Oldenburg University with a thesis on “Rome and its Emperors in Classical Epic Films”. Since 2011, he has been teaching Ancient History at the University of Göttingen, where he established the first Film Archive for the Classics, the Tom Stern Collection. Martin specialises in Imperial Roman history and cultural history, including a recent project on the so-called barbarian migrations and Gothic history and language. In addition, he has worked extensively on all kinds of popular classical reception, from films to board games, from novels to re-enactment, from comics to heavy metal music. His new book “Classical Heroes in the 21st Century” is forthcoming end of 2023.
The University of Göttingen is a venerable institution with longstanding traditions. In this light, it was all the more astonishing that in the summer of 2017 a truckload of films and projectors arrived at the Department of Ancient History, of all places. It was the first part of the estate of Tom Stern (1958–2016), who had been active as an archaeologist in Turkey, Syria, and southern Germany. Later, he had worked as a museum educator and exhibition organiser, especially at the Ruhr Museum in Essen. For decades, film research had been Tom Stern’s great passion: He had taught about it at universities, organised hundreds of lectures on historical and political education with it, and repeatedly integrated film into his exhibition projects. After his death, his heirs bequeathed his filmic working materials and the associated playback equipment to our institute.
(photo by Klara Wagner).
In the following years, the newly founded Tom Stern Film Collection for the Classics grew by numerous donations. From the director and film researcher Kurt Denzer, who died in 2021, we inherited several thousand books and magazines, as well as his camera equipment. From media libraries in schools and other educational institutions we were able to take over educational films from the 1950s to the present day. Individual researchers donated smaller film and book collections. A number of playback devices such as video recorders or 16mm film projectors came from private individuals. Our well over 1,000 media mainly contain documentaries on prehistoric, ancient historical, and archaeological topics as well as on the methods of excavations, exhibitions, and conservation projects. In addition, there are hundreds of school films, commercials and image films, propaganda films, series, feature films, film collages, etc.
(photo by Kerstin and Uli Hacke).
In the summer of 2023, we were finally able to acquire the second part of Tom Stern’s estate: a small number of films and work materials, but hundreds of reference books and – to our own surprise – numerous children’s books, comics, toys, teaching aids, and merchandising. Now, when we show a school film from the 1930s about ancient Germania, we can do so right next to the contemporary school maps and roll-up pictures. For a children’s series about life in the Stone Age, we now have an accompanying picture book, a comic, and a set of plastic figures. Even some board games and card games have become part of the Tom Stern Collection.
(photo by Xikai Chen).
At present, we are still in the set-up phase of the archive, and every new box feels like a treasure trove. The pandemic, the multitude of donations, and the limited funds, however, made it necessary to divide our forces well to make incremental and sustainable progress. We are currently recording all three-dimensional objects photographically and through measurements so that they can be entered into the object database of the Göttingen collections. We are also cataloguing the books and digitising the films. One day, hopefully, all our collection will at least be searchable from anywhere in the world, even if it will often remain necessary to come to us for usage. This is not least due to the restrictions imposed by copyright issues, which make it impossible for us to act like an internet media library.
(photo by Martin Liebetruth).
In fact, we are happy to have any kind of presence in the collection. We hold our own seminars there, offer open tours and film screenings. With workshops for teachers or history associations, we try to continue Tom Stern’s work. For researchers, we have recently set up a separate study where undisturbed access to all our holdings is possible, even over longer periods of time. With special events and exhibitions in the new Göttingen Science Museum “Forum Wissen” and our own film series in the “Méliès” art house cinema, we are visible to a wider audience. If you are interested in visiting us or seek our advice on any subject related to Classics in and on film, please feel free to contact us at any time.
Post by Martin Lindner, placed by Olga Strycharczyk.
For more information see also the leaflet (in German):
Our Mythical Childhood Blog 