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.

  • Border Talk in Dresden: Imagining Cohesion through Difference with Zafer Şenocak

    In this thoughtful commentary, UC Berkeley Class of 2021 alumna and MGP contributor Ardo Ali, who participated in our workshop with Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak, grapples with the troubled legacy of German reunification as reflected in the rise of so-called right-wing populism in Germany, which has been disproportionately steep in the formerly socialist East. Ali…

  • New Visions of Belonging in German Studies

    The latest installment in our Mission Possible series of reflections on the future of German Studies comes courtesy of the MGP’s own Elizabeth Sun, who situates Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Ingeborg Bachmann Prize-winning short story “Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin” in the context of recent trends in German literature and film as well as tendencies in…

  • Traveling in Pandemic Times: Yoko Tawada and Poetic Border-Crossing

    Yoko Tawada’s guest appearance in the third installation of “Archives of Migration” sparked a lively and contemporarily relevant conversation on the potential of poetic border-crossing in pandemic times, where physical mobility has been intensely challenged by closed-off national borders and the anxiety over cross-person contamination. A native of Japan, Tawada writes and publishes prolifically in…

  • Pandemic Palimpsest: Yoko Tawada’s “Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel”

    MGP editor Qingyang Zhou and Jezell Lee, both participants in our series of Zoom workshops with authors, reflect on our event with poet, playwright, and novelist Yoko Tawada, examining the transnational homage and fragmentary intertextuality of her latest novel, 2020’s Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel. In the third installment of the Zoom conversation series…

  • Radio Plays about the Crimes of the NSU: Part III – From the Victims’ Perspective

    In the last installment of the three-part series on the NSU trial, guest columnist Monika Preuß focuses on the personal narratives of the victims of crimes committed by NSU members. You can read this post in the original German here.  The first installment of the series, an introduction to the NSU trials and the major…

  • Hörspiele zum NSU-Verbrechen: Teil III – Einblick in die Perspektive der Opfer

    In the last installment of our three-part series on the NSU trial, guest columnist Monika Preuß focuses on the personal narratives of the victims of crimes committed by NSU members. You can read this post in English translation here.  The first installment of the series, an introduction to the NSU trials and the major radio…

  • Archiving Memories in Pandemic Times: Documenting Jewish Exile in Shanghai

    In spring 2019, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) hosted an event series titled “Afterimage” to showcase renowned German director Ulrike Ottinger’s critically acclaimed documentaries, while inviting her to discuss her research methods and approach to visual design when making nonfictional films in a Mosse Lecture event and a podcast. From November…

  • Imagining the Other Side of Things: Zafer Şenocak and Hidden Archives

    MGP editor Elizabeth Sun follows up on our recent event with Zafer Şenocak, interrogating the possibilities for resistance that lie in the counter-hegemonic reconstruction of historical narrative. On Friday, April 2, we welcomed the widely published Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak to the second installment of “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of…

  • “Ich bin Diskursfeind”: Zafer Şenocak on Unreadable Archives

    The second installment (April 2) of the Zoom event series “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake News” invited Turkish-German author Zafer Şenocak in conversation with Deniz Göktürk (Professor of German Studies, UC Berkeley) and Kristin Dickinson (Assistant Professor of German Studies, University of Michigan) to discuss his recent book Das Fremde,…

  • Hörspiele zum NSU-Prozess: Teil II – Auditive Dissonanzen im Gerichtssaal und in der Öffentlichkeit

    In this second installment of the three-part blog post series on the NSU trial, guest columnist Monika Preuß analyzes the polyphonic structure of several radio plays and the resulting “Rashomon” effect created by the layering of diverse perspectives of the trial participants and the general public.  You can read an English translation of this text…