“Auf den Trümmern das Paradies”? Ilija Trojanow’s Utopian Prerogative
wie eine meuterei bricht das glück, wie ein löwe aus. ——Hans Magnus Enzensberger: utopia In this blog post, Berkeley Ph.D. student Anna Lynn Dolman reflects on Ilija Trojanow’s Mosse Lecture on “The Utopian Prerogative,” specifically how literature can sketch a topography of the future and indeed affect the world we live in – not by […]
Polyphone Auseinandersetzungen mit kulturellen Bildern, Vorurteilen und Rassismus im Hörspiel “Bitmemiş – not finished yet” (2019) von Ralf Haarmann und Tuğsal Moğul
Picture Source: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Guest contributor Monika Preuß (Technische Universität Dortmund), author of the MGP blog post series on German radio plays, analyzes the portrayal of lived experiences of Turkish German immigrants across generations in Ralf Haarmann’s recent radio play, Bitmemiş – not finished yet (2019). Das Hörspiel Bitmemiş – not finished yet des Komponisten […]
Writing as an (Im)migrant: Calls to Action in Fatma Aydemir’s “Work”
In the latest blog post inspired by Berkeley’s “Archives of Migration” conversation series and Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies seminar on “Cultures of Migration,” Kavina Peters (Berkeley Freshman, Environmental Economics and Policy major) analyzes Fatma Aydemir’s short essay from that volume, focusing on how Aydemir challenges her readers to reflect on their own […]
Multilingual Lives, Monolingual Institutions
Picture copyright Ⓒ Anna Becker In the latest blog post inspired by author Olga Grjasnowa’s book talk “Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit” and Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies seminar on “Cultures of Migration,” Anna Becker (Berkeley Senior, Interdisciplinary Migration Studies Major) critiques the disjuncture between ethnoculturally diverse student populations and the lack of high-quality […]
Minds of Their Own: Documenting Voices of Migrants to the GDR
Picture Source: Eigensinn im Bruderland Helen Schiff, visiting student researcher from the University of Konstanz, analyzes a prize-winning multimedia online documentary, Eigensinn im Bruderland (2019), which presents a humanistic view on the multifaceted experiences of Immigrants of Color to the former GDR in a way that contests stereotypical narratives of omnipotent repression in the East […]
The Perception of Language in Countries of Migration
Picture Source: Etsy Inspired by author Olga Grjasnowa’s talk on “Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit” and by Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies course on “Cultures of Migration,” L.A. native Emily Yepez (Berkeley Freshman, Chemical Biology major) reflects on her own experience with multilingualism as a Mexican American and critiques how the connection between native […]
Letter by a Grateful Immigrant
Picture Source: International Financial Law Review Having reflected on the power of humor in her latest MGP blog post on Saša Stanišić’s Herkunft, guest author Angèle Yehe Zheng (Graduating Senior in Philosophy, UC Berkeley) returns to present a creative piece of writing about her experience as a second-generation Chinese immigrant in Luxembourg. This project grew […]
Humor in Heidelberg: Saša Stanišić’s Herkunft
After reflecting on the connection between multilingualism and multidirectional creativity in Ilija Trojanow’s Nach der Flucht, MGP editor Elise Volkmann returns, with co-author Angèle Yehe Zheng, for another blog post on the healing power of humor against trauma in Saša Stanišić’s German Book Prize-winning novel, Herkunft (2019). The second installment of the event series “Archives […]
All Culture Is Remix: Confluences against Nationalist Narratives
Ambika Athreya, Ph.D. Candidate in German Studies at UC Berkeley, reflects on how Ilija Trojanow and Ranjit Hoskote challenge nationalist narratives and cultural essentialism in their co-authored essayistic monograph, Confluences: Forgotten Stories from East and West (2012). In conversation with Chunjie Zhang at the “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake […]
Loving the Glacier with Ilija Trojanow
Verena Wolf, Ph.D. candidate of German Studies at UC Berkeley, and Valentin Rickert, visiting scholar from the University of Konstanz, reflect on Ilija Trojanow’s book EisTau (2011), situating the novel within the political discourse of German ecocriticism and the literary discourse of romance and dystopia in the age of the Anthropocene. UC Berkeley’s series of […]