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. Tanja Mehlo reviewed Martin Hyun’s 2012 Ohne Fleiss kein Reis: Wie ich ein guter Deutscher wurde: Ohne Fleiß kein Reis was written […]

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. Ann Huang reviewed Melda Abkas’ memoir So wie ich will: Mein Leben zwischen Moschee und Minirock:  In her autobiography So wie […]

Book Review by UC Berkeley undergraduate Ann Huang: In her autobiography “So wie ich will: Mein Leben zwischen Moschee und Minirock”, published in 2010, Melda Abkas presents her experiences as a second-generation Turkish youth endeavouring to establish her own cultural identity in modern Germany. Written just after Abkas’s 19th birthday, in highly colloquial rhetoric, the […]

This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week’s summary is by Victoria Brinkerhoff: This week’s Multicultural Germany class readings and discussions delved into religious variation, contention, and representation within Germany today. We focused on questions and debates surrounding secularism, […]

This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week’s summary is by Ann Huang: As the discussion of a multicultural Germany progresses, the conversation naturally gravitates towards an analysis of the contemporary situation of ‘migrants’ and the persistent underlying difficulties to […]

A group of more than 60 Academics released an online petition Tuesday calling on the new German government to reform integration politics by creating a separate government bureau to exclusively address migration and integration policy. The reformers state that the Bundesinnesministerium, which currently handles integration affairs, is often too overwhelmed with their primary goals of […]