Reflections on Archival Resistance: Conversations with Sharon Dodua Otoo, Zafer Şenocak and Yoko Tawada
In spring 2021, we hosted a series of conversations with contemporary writers titled “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake News.” Organized jointly by Professors Deniz Göktürk and Elisabeth Krimmer (UC Davis), this series was supported by the German Consulate General San Francisco, and co-sponsored by the German Historical Institute Pacific […]
Border Talk in Dresden: Imagining Cohesion through Difference with Zafer Şenocak
In this thoughtful commentary, UC Berkeley Class of 2021 alumna and MGP contributor Ardo Ali, who participated in our workshop with Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak, grapples with the troubled legacy of German reunification as reflected in the rise of so-called right-wing populism in Germany, which has been disproportionately steep in the formerly socialist East. Ali […]
New Visions of Belonging in German Studies
The latest installment in our Mission Possible series of reflections on the future of German Studies comes courtesy of the MGP’s own Elizabeth Sun, who situates Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Ingeborg Bachmann Prize-winning short story “Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin” in the context of recent trends in German literature and film as well as tendencies in […]
Traveling in Pandemic Times: Yoko Tawada and Poetic Border-Crossing
Yoko Tawada’s guest appearance in the third installation of “Archives of Migration” sparked a lively and contemporarily relevant conversation on the potential of poetic border-crossing in pandemic times, where physical mobility has been intensely challenged by closed-off national borders and the anxiety over cross-person contamination. A native of Japan, Tawada writes and publishes prolifically in […]
Pandemic Palimpsest: Yoko Tawada’s “Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel”
MGP editor Qingyang Zhou and Jezell Lee, both participants in our series of Zoom workshops with authors, reflect on our event with poet, playwright, and novelist Yoko Tawada, examining the transnational homage and fragmentary intertextuality of her latest novel, 2020’s Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel. In the third installment of the Zoom conversation series […]
Radio Plays about the Crimes of the NSU: Part III – From the Victims’ Perspective
In the last installment of the three-part series on the NSU trial, guest columnist Monika Preuß focuses on the personal narratives of the victims of crimes committed by NSU members. You can read this post in the original German here. The first installment of the series, an introduction to the NSU trials and the major […]
Hörspiele zum NSU-Verbrechen: Teil III – Einblick in die Perspektive der Opfer
In the last installment of our three-part series on the NSU trial, guest columnist Monika Preuß focuses on the personal narratives of the victims of crimes committed by NSU members. You can read this post in English translation here. The first installment of the series, an introduction to the NSU trials and the major radio […]
Archiving Memories in Pandemic Times: Documenting Jewish Exile in Shanghai
In spring 2019, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) hosted an event series titled “Afterimage” to showcase renowned German director Ulrike Ottinger’s critically acclaimed documentaries, while inviting her to discuss her research methods and approach to visual design when making nonfictional films in a Mosse Lecture event and a podcast. From November […]
Imagining the Other Side of Things: Zafer Şenocak and Hidden Archives
MGP editor Elizabeth Sun follows up on our recent event with Zafer Şenocak, interrogating the possibilities for resistance that lie in the counter-hegemonic reconstruction of historical narrative. On Friday, April 2, we welcomed the widely published Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak to the second installment of “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of […]
“Ich bin Diskursfeind”: Zafer Şenocak on Unreadable Archives
The second installment (April 2) of the Zoom event series “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake News” invited Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak in conversation with Deniz Göktürk (Professor of German Studies, UC Berkeley) and Kristin Dickinson (Assistant Professor of German Studies, University of Michigan) to discuss his recent book Das Fremde, […]