If I Should Die
by José F.A. Oliver Translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi Download PDF Acknowledgments This particular translation was first presented during a cooperative and interlingual workshop entitled “Loops of Mig:ration” held on the UC Berkeley campus in February 2016. The translator would like to give special thanks to the Goethe-Institut San Francisco and the Berkeley Department of German […]
The Indignant
by Deniz Utlu Translated by Katy Derbyshire Download PDF Translator’s Introduction I wrote this translation for an event at Schöneberg Town Hall, the site of Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. Deniz Utlu was invited to read and speak as a voice of his generation: a postmigrant youth with no sense of hold, it was […]
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) […]
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, 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; […]
Evet, Ich will!
The movie revolves around three different couples who have to overcome familial and cultural obstacles to be with their ones they love. A man looking for a bride-for-hire also learns the hard way that expectations and reality do not always come together well. Links: IMDB, Film official website Genre(s): comedy, romance Director: Sinan Akkus Cast: […]
Book Review: “Bekannte Fremde: Geschichten aus dem interkulturellen Alltag”
As part of their work for the Multicultural Germany undergraduate seminar at UC Berkeley, students in the course have reviewed recent German books relating in various ways to topics of migration, multiculturalism, and contemporary German identity. Teddy Lee reviewed Klaus Geiger’s 2007 collection of short stories, Bekannte Fremde: Geschichten aus dem interkulturellen Alltag: Das Buch von Klaus […]
Bekannte Fremde: Geschichten aus dem interkulturellen Alltag
Book Review by UC Berkeley undergraduate Teddy Lee: Das Buch von Klaus F. Geiger, Bekannte Fremde: Geschichten aus dem interkulturellen Alltag gibt einen Überblick über die kulturellen unterschiede zwischen den Deutschen und den Türken. Alle Formen von Diskriminierungen gegen lebenden Türkischen Staatsbürger im Alltag Deutschlands werden hier auch sichtbar gemacht. Das Buch ist 2007 in […]