Paul Flaig

Paul Flaig is a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews' Centre for Contemporary Art. His work focuses on transnational and temporal circulation of cinematic forms, particularly American slapstick and screwball comedy in Weimar Germany and their reinvention in digital culture. He co-edited the award-winning New Silent Cinema (2015) and is completing a monograph Weimar Slapstick: American Eccentrics, German Grotesques and Hollywood Comedy Re-Functioned.

Research interests include:

• History/philosophy of film comedy
• Weimar Republic cinema's engagement with American humor
• Feminist media archaeology
• Slapstick's post-Fordist legacies
• Interdisciplinary connections between cinema and philosophy

Recent publications analyze Raoul Hausmann's functionalist cinema theories, Bergson's laughter philosophy applied to slapstick, and Lacanian interpretations of Marx Brothers films. His articles appear in Cinema Journal, Screen, and Camera Obscura.

Award-winning editor of New Silent Cinema (2015 Routledge award winner). Current projects include a feminist media archaeology study tracing voices across media eras.

Grants/Projects:

• German Screen Studies Network (DAAD, 2025-2027)
• Weimar Slapstick Research (Carnegie Trust, 2017-2018)

Labs/Teams: Co-editor of Professional Notes for Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.