Archival Spaces: Memory, Images, History
Jan-Christopher Horak
Dr. Jan-Christopher Horak
Instructor, University of California, Los Angeles
jchrishorak@aol.com
Horak@chapman.edu
Portraits
Biography
Jan-Christopher Horak is an adjunct professor at UCLA and Chapman University. He is former Director of UCLA Film & Television Archive. He received his PhD. from the Westfählische Wilhelms-Universät in Münster, Germany, his Master of Science from Boston University, and his B.A. in History from the University of Delaware. He was previously Director of Archives & Collections at Universal Studios, Director of the Munich Filmmuseum, and Senior Curator, George Eastman Museum. He has held professorships at UCLA, the University of Miami-L.A., the University of Rochester, the Munich Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen, the University of Salzburg, and Wayne State University Abroad. Named an Academy Scholar in 2006, he is also the recipient of the Katherine Singer Kovacs Essay Award (2007) and the Reinhold Schünzel Prize (2018). In 2021 he was honored with a Life Achievement Award from the German Association of Cinematheques. His book publications include Film and Photo in the 1920s (1979), Helmar Leski (1983), Anti-Nazi-Films in Hollywood (1985), The Dream Merchants (1989), The First American Film Avant-Garde 1919-1945 (1995), Saul Bass. Anatomy of Film Design (2014). He is co-editor of The L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (2015), which won SCMS Best Edited Collection Award, and the Andor Kraszna-Kraus International Film Book Award and Hollywood Goes Latin (2019). Enchanted by Cinema: WIlliam Thiele between Vienna, Berlin and Hollywood (2024) was co-edited by Benjamin-Andreas Seyfert. He has published more than 300 articles and reviews on all manner of film historical subjects in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Swedish, Japanese, and Hebrew publications.
Books
Archival Spaces Blog
This blog is a continuation of a blog I have been writing for over fifteen years. I started it on an Ithaca College website in 2009 at the invitation of my colleague the late Patty Zimmermann, who asked me to consider writing about film archival issues, film history, and the interrelationship between the two. Now, unfortunately, defunct. In 2011, I moved the blog, which I had named Archival Spaces to the UCLA Film & Television website, when I became Director of the Archive. Those blogs are still available at the link in the header. The first blog on this site was written in September 2019 but was not published, because I retired from UCLA. This site has been live since December 2019.
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Archival Spaces 
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Wow… Not a very profound word. However, I am totally entralled by your ability to capture the moment of truth through enlightenment of diametrical pose. What a wonderful worldly resource of knowledge you embody. Please sign me to your blog.
Graciously:
Timothy Patrick Prince Princetimothy58@gmail.com
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Thanks, Timothy. I hope you were able to sign up below (bottom page 3).
Best wishes,
CHRIS
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Margaret, if you have not already done so, go to the bottom of page 3 and hit the subscribe button. Thanks!
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Developer
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Chris, Sorry to tell you there is no “page 3” on this site and no link. We should talk. Joan’s father and mother lived across the street from Villa Aurora, to the right of the photo. Her mother was also called up by one of the HUAC subcommittees.
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There is no page 3 and no link, that I can see snyway.
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View
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See below for joining in emails of the blog.
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lime
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Lebanon
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Dear Mr. Horak, I would like to send you an e-mail, could you give it to me? Thank you very much. Greetings from Hamburg, Senta Siewert
senta.siewert@rub.de
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Hi Chris, I’d like to follow updates on your blog.
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Sign me up!
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transition
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Thanks for sending me the link to your blog. Reading your blog was eye-opening for me!
I was impressed you had saved the Winterim program from 1971. There was a lot of unrest at the University of Delaware(as at many other college campuses). In retrospect, I see Winterim 1971 as an attempt by the university to engage the students on a not so formal academic basis.
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Great to find the blog again, please sign me up
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I’m joining your blog in progress and appreciating your work more than ever. Plus thank you for preserving my work at UCLA.
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Keep em coming
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Much of the information in the Jan-Christopher Hiram regarding my rediscovery 6 year involvement with the 1969 Harlem Cultural festival is incorrect and incomplete. It is a shame I was not contacted for this piece. The Mia information continues!
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Joe,
my last name is Horak, not Hiram. Feel free to post corrections.
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my phone speaking there sorry – your telling of the technical end of the Harlem Fest is fabulous -however there are so many inaccuracies being repeated and repeated regarding my end and my company Historic Films’ involvement that i am weary of trying to “correct” them all – I only wish your diligent research on the tech end could also have been extended to me . i will though forward you some info being prepared now that will illustrate that story in an accurate manner
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Hi Chris;
Please sign me up to receive notifications. Thanks.
Larry Blake
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You need to input yourself at the very bottom of the last page. Thanks.
CHRIS
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Hi Chris, still the problem is to register for this blog. There is no last page or page 3 indicated, where we could register.
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WordPress. makes it complicated. You need to go to bottom of 1st blog (now page 20) where there is a button to sign up.
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Are you related to Koerber technology in Germany?
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Done, hope it helps!
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Please add me to the mailing list
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Hello, I’m doing some research on the films of Jamaa Fanaka, & I was curious if I could send you an email in aid of that? I wasn’t sure if I should use the email listed on the UCLA faculty page, so I wanted to check with you first.
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Jchrishorak@aol.com
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Have just finished “The Big Screen” by”David Thomson and have come across your blog which seems a natural progression for me in finding a deeper meaning of Film History. Many thanks!
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