Alles wird gut (Everything’s Gonna Be Great)
With actors Kati Stüdemann and Chantal De Freitas Nabou, an Afro-German slacker, desperatly wants to win back her club kid ex-girlfriend Katja. Nabou becomes a housekeeper for Katja’s neighbor, Kim, who is a workaholic that is striving to become a partner in an advertising agency. A refreshing romantic comedy with the ingredients of a classic […]
Brudermord (Fratricide)
With actors Xevat Gectan, Erdal Celik, Bulent Buyukasik, Nurettin Celik, Yusuf Gectan, Taies Farzan, Oral Uyan, Xhiljona Ndoja; Available on DVD in Germany Summary: Semo, a Kurdish immigrant and pimp living in Germany, offers to pay for his younger brother Azad to come and join him. Reluctantly, Azad accepts his brother’s offer and makes the long […]
Plea for a Mobile Identity
Hugo Loetscher Download PDF Abstract: This lecture was originally delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, on December 4, 2008. It focuses on the conception of identity from both a Swiss and an international perspective, debating the conflict between personal, national and global identity on the basis of personal experiences. The focus is on variation […]
Switzerland, a Country of Paradoxes: An Interview about Swiss Identity, Politics and Culture with Hugo Loetscher, Roger de Weck and Iso Camartin
Jeroen Dewulf, Kezhen Feng, Susan Hunsicker, and Andrew Tweed Download PDF Abstract: The following interview was compiled from conversations with Hugo Loetscher, Roger de Weck and Iso Camartin during their visits to Berkeley in Fall 2008. The three authors took part in the lecture series “Multicultural Identity in Europe: The Swiss Model.” The series was […]
Traveling without Moving: Physical and Linguistic Mobility in Yoko Tawada’s Überseezungen
Christina Kraenzle Download PDF Abstract: Travel and translation constitute the primary focus of Yoko Tawada’s literary production. Many of Tawada’s German-language works are travel stories that consider the models of subjectivity enabled by travel across spaces and languages. This essay considers how her works investigate the interconnectedness of mobility, geography, language and identity, and how […]
Transit Heimat: Transnational Subjectivity and Mobility in German Theatre
Denise Varney Download PDF. Abstract: This paper is interested in themes of translation, transnational subjectivity and mobility in German theatre between 1994 and 2004. It is set within the broader context of the expansion of Europeanisation that followed German reunification and the lifting of the Iron Curtain in central and eastern Europe. It is therefore […]
Finding Home in a Liminal Space: Exile and Return in Andreas Dresen’s Halbe Treppe
Kathleen Sclafani Download PDF Abstract: In his film Halbe Treppe, Andreas Dresen uses stylistic elements and modes of production similar to exilic filmmakers, as described by Naficy in his book An Accented Cinema, in an attempt to portray both a sense of exile and a desire for freedom in his characters. Since exile is inextricably […]
The Multilingual Experience: Insights from Language Memoirs
Claire Kramsch Download PDF Abstract: In the U.S.: FL education is still very much hostage to a view of language and culture that privileges the nation-state and its national native speakers. There are currently calls for more imagination/creativity/language play, more collaborative learning. But they have not put into question the ultimate goal, which is to […]
Circumventing Openness: Creating New Senses of Dutchness
Isabel Hoving Download PDF Abstract: Time and again, people who come to the Netherlands are struck by the excessive openness of the Dutch landscape and the Dutch people. Migrants and visitors often remark that Dutch people boast of having created this territory themselves – they live in a transparent space they think they know and […]