“Meine eigene Geschichte”: Identity Construction Through Reading in Abbas Khider’s Der falsche Inder
TRANSIT Vol. 13, No. 1 by Landon Reitz [Related Links: Franziska Wolf’s The Figure of the Exiled Writer in Comparison: Intertextuality in Lion Feuchtwanger’s Exil (1940) and Abbas Khider’s Der falsche Inder (2008)] Download PDF Abstract This article examines issues of authorship, identity, and narrative form in Abbas Khider’s 2008 novel Der falsche Inder as developed through […]
BOOK REVIEW: In Permanent Crisis: Ethnicity in Contemporary European Media and Cinema
by İpek A. Çelik TRANSIT vol. 11, no. 2 Download PDF Çelik, İpek A. In Permanent Crisis: Ethnicity in Contemporary European Media and Cinema. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015. 206 pages. İpek A. Çelik begins In Permanent Crisis: Ethnicity in Contemporary European Media and Cinema with an analysis of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine […]
Film Review: Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven)
Posted in conjunction with the course Multicultural Germany in fall semester 2015. Author: Kenneth Cromer The Edge of Heaven (2007), directed by German-Turkish director Fatih Akın, is an award-winning German-Turkish film that exemplifies the convergence of German and Turkish cultures in many regards, including heritage, language and lifestyle. Beyond the masterfully crafted intersecting storylines, an […]
Film Review: The Swissmakers (Die Schweizermacher)
Posted in conjunction with the course Multicultural Germany in fall semester 2015. Author: Karla Palos The 1978 film Die Schweizermacher (The Swissmakers) is a good cop/bad cop comedy directed by Rolf Lyssy which dramatizes the bureaucratic exchanges between immigration officials and immigrants applying for Swiss citizenship. The film focuses on two officials: Walo Lüönd, who plays […]
Multicultural Germany Course: Week 5 Summary (Sept. 28 & 30)
This last week in class, we discussed the idea of German collective memory and screened the film Almanya – Welcome to Germany. The week’s discussions started with how the term “melting pot” was used to describe US culture in the early 1900s. The picture found on the Wikipedia page for the term (The Melting Pot) […]
Multicultural Germany Course: Week 4 Summary (Sept. 21 & 23)
Who defines identity? Germany’s struggle with inclusivity. This last week in class, we discussed the limits of Germany’s capacity to take in immigrants and what it means to be German. Proponents of reducing the number of foreigners in Germany believe that the “boat” of Germany’s capacity for incorporation of foreigners is “full.” To these native-born […]
True Stories of Being Black in Germany, Lakshmi Sarah
Lakshmi Sarah, one of the participants in the course Multicultural Germany, produced an article published in KQED entitled “True Stories of Being Black in Germany” in which she introduces a traveling exhibit from the Goethe Institut and its curator Victoria Toney-Robinson. Please click on this link to read the article in full: “True Stories of […]
Multicultural Germany Course: Summary of the First Two Weeks
To summarize the first two weeks of the seminar “Multicultural Germany” (fall 2015) it is best to start off with the participants: One third of the class is exchange students, mostly from Germany. Due to this the class can benefit from the insights and background information these students bring to the table. Another bonus is […]
Multicultural Germany Course, Fall Semester 2015
This course addresses questions of mobility and borders in our increasingly connected and disjointed world. We will approach the history of post-World War II Germany through the lens of migration, reading a variety of texts critically and relating them to broader questions of economic and cultural globalization: the long term consequences of “guest worker” recruitment; […]
Multicultural Germany Class: Europe and Beyond
As the Spring 2014 semester is coming to an end, this will be the last post in our series of student reflections on the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week’s summary is by Tanja Mehlo: In the last week of class, we continued discussing Europe and its internal and external borders and how these borders are used to […]