TRANSIT BLOG

TRANSIT Blog was formerly part of the Multicultural Germany Project (MGP), which we are now merging with Transit Journal. Founded in 2001 by the German Department at UC Berkeley, MGP served as a research collaborative and continuously updated archive of migration, supported by the tireless energy and willpower of our very own Deniz Göktürk and UC Berkeley’s graduate students. Our blog includes reactions to current events and news, research materials, and teaching resources. Maintained mainly by students at Berkeley, the blog provides a window into our activities and campus discussions. We hope that TRANSIT Blog continues to serve as a resource and forum for both aspiring and continuing professionals in German Studies and its adjacent fields; we welcome contributions of short thought-pieces of ca. 1000-1500 words year-round. If you would like to contribute your own blog post or other materials (in English or German), please contact us at transitjournal@berkeley.edu.

  • Loving the Glacier with Ilija Trojanow

    Verena Wolf, Ph.D. candidate of German Studies at UC Berkeley, and Valentin Rickert, visiting scholar from the University of Konstanz, reflect on Ilija Trojanow’s book EisTau (2011), situating the novel within the political discourse of German ecocriticism and the literary discourse of romance and dystopia in the age of the Anthropocene. UC Berkeley’s series of…

  • Overcoming Static Inertia: Ilija Trojanow’s “Nach der Flucht”

    Elise Volkmann, Ph.D. candidate of German Studies at Berkeley, reflects on our event with novelist Ilija Trojanow and his book Nach der Flucht (2017), examining how a person who has fled can turn the loss of language and the struggle with a new language into a source of multi-directional creativity. The event series “Archives of…

  • CFP: Berkeley Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference on “Arrested Mobilities: Stillness, Power and Modernity” (Feb. 25-26, 2022, Online)

    As early as the 1920’s, Robert Musil remarked on the enormous effort it takes to stand still in a world that demands constant motion. Reflecting on the zooming street he sees through his window, the protagonist of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften comments: “Könnte man die Sprünge der Aufmerksamkeit messen, die Leistungen der Augenmuskeln, die Pendelbewegungen…

  • CFP (edited volume): Charting Asian German Film History: Imagination, Collaboration, and Diasporic Representation (ed. Qinna Shen, Zach Ramon Fitzpatrick, Qingyang Freya Zhou)

    Since the beginning of 2020, anti-Asian violence saw a sharp increase in Europe and North America, as frustrations about the COVID-19 pandemic were taken out on those marked as Asian or “asiatisch gelesen.” In response to the March 2021 shootings in Atlanta, the Berlin-based network for Asian German perspectives korientation posted the open letter “Atlanta –…

  • Reflections on a Postmigrant Turn

    Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, anti-immigrant violence saw a sharp increase in Europe and North America, as frustrations about the public health conditions and the governments’ responses to the state of crisis resulted in a rising tide of xenophobia. In this blog post, guest contributors Rahel Cramer (Macquarie U), Jara Schmidt…

  • Überlegungen zu einem Postmigrant Turn

    Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, anti-immigrant violence saw a sharp increase in Europe and North America, as frustrations about the public health conditions and the governments’ responses to the state of crisis resulted in a rising tide of xenophobia. In this blog post, guest contributors Rahel Cramer (Macquarie U), Jara Schmidt…

  • A Tale of Three Cities: Part III – How to Politicize Public Health

    In an exclusive three-part series for our blog, UC Berkeley undergraduate and MGP contributor Jezell Lee reflects on a personal experience of misinformation and polarization during the coronavirus pandemic, caught between the gravitational pull of Los Angeles, Berlin, and Taipei and heavily mediated through social media and the particularity of each locale. In the concluding…

  • A Tale of Three Cities: Part II – Polarization and Conspiracy on Social Media

    In a new three-part series for our blog, UC Berkeley undergraduate and MGP contributor Jezell Lee reflects on a personal experience of the pandemic and political polarization, caught between the gravitational pull of the United States, Germany, and Taiwan and heavily mediated through social media and the particularity of each locale. In the second installment,…

  • A Tale of Three Cities: Part I – Instagram as Pandemic Archive

    In a new three-part series for our blog, UC Berkeley undergraduate and MGP contributor Jezell Lee reflects on a personal experience of quarantine caught between the gravitational pull of the United States, Germany, and Taiwan, heavily mediated through social media and the particularity of each locale. In the first installment, Jezell thinks through the role…

  • 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…