Devin Fore is Exploring the Interplay of German Media and Culture

Born in Germany and raised in Texas, Devin Fore gravitated to German media theory in school, feeling it provided him with “a really compelling framework” for understanding how context affects artistic output. “I was always interested in the relationship between culture and technology — specifically, between art and literature and mass media,” Fore says. In his studies he set out to understand “what motivates cultural production in a historical and political framework?” 

Fore earned his Ph.D. in German literature from Columbia University in 2005 and joined Princeton’s Department of German the following year. His research focuses on the media and cultural practices that tie German and Russian avant-garde movements to political efforts. “It’s really about looking at historical contexts and the way that they affect and transform artistic practices,” he says.

Quick Facts

Title
Professor of German

Time at Princeton
19 years

Recent Class
Topics in German Media Theory & History

Fore’s Research: A Sampling

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Mikel Casal

Prioritizing Punctuality

Coinciding with the formation of the Soviet Union in the 1920s was an intense interest in factual documentation; new technologies, such as film and photography, facilitated this effort. “Concerns with Russia’s ‘belatedness’ are everywhere in the discourse of the period — concerns that Russia is a society out of sync, running behind, where people are always showing up late to things,” Fore explains. “There was this sense that there would be no successful revolution if all of the people in this vast, multiethnic empire couldn’t show up and talk to each other.” In his 2024 book, Soviet Factography, which refers to the practice of using mass media to capture facts and chronicle modernization, Fore examines ways in which Soviet art forms tried to “collectivize and coordinate consciousness” across the country by conveying information quickly and efficiently.

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Mikel Casal

The Power of Mass Media

In his next book, Mass Technics of the Document: Factography and Cultural Revolution, expected to be published in 2026, Fore will examine the impact of media massification in Russia in the 1910s and 1920s. “How does art function differently when there’s just more of it?” he asks. Fore will also explore the new, rapidly evolving communication channels during the period — from newspapers to radio to film — to understand “how the structure of the media really impacts what we consider to be true or false.” For example, reporters are able to write short, fast texts that are close to present-day events as they unfold, and this effect of liveness establishes the superiority of journalism’s truth claims over those of a long-form genre of writing like the novel. That materialist approach to media “is one I find to be already very much articulated in the 1920s.”

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Mikel Casal

The Rise of Fantasy

Fantasy as a genre resurged in the 20th century, initially spurred on by rapid technological and industrial innovation. Fore is interested in the ways in which fantasy “comes to replace imagination” during this period. “Imagination is always understood to be something private, something very personal. In contrast, fantasy is something that’s public, shared, collective,” he explains. To examine the “comeback” of fantasy and understand its history, Fore and collaborator Kerstin Stakemeier are bringing theorists, philosophers, artists, and art critics to Princeton March 28-29 for the international conference “Fantasies of the People.” Fore expects the conference will help shape a future exhibition on the topic that he and Stakemeier are planning.