Dr. Mennel is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in English and Germanic and Slavic Studies. Dr. Mennel received her PhD in German Studies from Cornell University in 1998.  She is author of The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature (Palgrave, 2007) and Cities and Cinema (Routledge, forthcoming April 2008). In 2002–2003, she was a member of the Beatrice M. Bain Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published in Camera Obscura, Germanic Review, Modern Austrian Literature, New German Critique, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, and Women in German Yearbook. Her research interests include transnational cinematic practices, feminist and queer theory, minority cultural production in Germany, and the intersection of urban studies and cinema studies.