Divinatory Intimacies: Cinephilia and Palmistry in Weimar Film Magazine Culture, Ervin Malakaj, University of British Columbia
Marianne Raschig counts as one of the most famous palmists of Germany’s Weimar Era. Prominent public figures frequented her atelier. Between 1928–1930, the erudite film periodical Film-Magazin published her column titled “An ihren Händen sollst du sie erkennen” [You’ll Recognized them by their Hands]. A two-page spread featured life-size hand prints of notable film industry figures alongside Raschig’s professional “reading” of their palms. Situating the column in the Weimar media history of occultism and pseudoscience, this paper shows how Raschig’s divinatory techniques patterned cinephile intimacies potent for the development of a theory of cinematic attachment.