In Memoriam: Eileen Rositzka

It is with enormous sadness and heavy hearts that the War and Media Studies SIG shares the news of Eileen Rositzka’s passing. Many of you will no doubt have read the moving tribute to Eileen on the Cinepoetics site; we want to offer another tribute to her to honour the impact that her humour, generosity of spirit, and intellect had on our community.

Eileen was a founding member of the War and Media Studies SIG at SCMS and served as its first Graduate Student representative. Her brilliant and innovative work on ‘corpography’ and experiences of war, both on and through screens, (Cinematic Corpographies: Remapping the Body Through Film) sat at the intersections of Film Studies, War Studies and Geography, and underpinned her enormous contributions to the nascent SIG. She was instrumental in developing the website and implementing the Graduate Student Writing Prize, which will now be named in her honour. In all her SIG activities, she was energetic, enthusiastic and resourceful. Working with Eileen was always a joy – she’d have everything managed before you’d had time to think about what needed to happen, and she’d make you smile while doing it.

She was also wonderful to collaborate with intellectually. In planning a journal special edition (that never quite got off the ground for reasons outside of our control), she was remarkably agile in her thinking and found solutions to all of the concerns that contributing authors raised about how our work fit together. Her attitude of ‘we can make this work, together,’ was a lesson in collective creativity that’s not only essential in collaborative projects, but also in challenging the competitive individualism of the neoliberal academy. Eileen reminded us that we can do things differently, and better, if we make things together.

As well as being a brilliant scholar, Eileen had a magnetic and warm personality that encouraged friendship in spaces where people could often feel left out. At conferences, she was a smiling presence who would introduce new faces into existing groups. She was witty, and fun, and refused to take academic hierarchies or structures too seriously. She recognised inequalities and in conversation would speak of wanting the sector to be fairer for people disadvantaged by gender, race, and class. Yet even in the most serious of discussions she had a knack for making you laugh; puncturing your own (or even her own) ego or reminding you that there was more to life than what professor so-and-so thought about your latest publication. In a world and a sector that’s often hard to navigate with a sense of optimism, Eileen’s interventions were always a gift and good for the soul.

There will be many SIG members with fond memories of Eileen at conferences, or in more informal spaces sharing her music and infectious energy with others. One of my own is sitting in the sun outside a bar in Berlin when I was visiting in the summer of 2016. We had a great time talking about feminism, drinking beer, and putting the world to rights while we half-watched football on the big screen (England didn’t win that year, but I’m still holding out hope for feminism). We hope to hear more about everyone’s stories of Eileen in future and welcome people to get in touch with ideas for a tribute at the next SIG meeting (email Anna Froula or Karen Ritzenhoff).

For now, we want to take the opportunity to remember Eileen’s beautiful spirit and passion for ideas. Words can’t do justice to her personality, but we’re all no doubt feeling the loss of her in our community. The SIG sends condolences to her family and friends and will always hold her in our memory. May she rest in peace.

Tribute composed by Becca Harrison, SIG Co-Chair (2016-2019)