Sponsor(s): Institute of European Studies, Center for German and European Studies, UC Berkeley Department of History, German Historical Institute Washington | Pacific Office Berkeley, UC Berkeley Department of German, DAAD, Center for Jewish Studies The conceptual couple of majority/minority is viewed as a harmless way of identifying an arithmetic relationship. The idea of a dichotomy between majority and (Jewish) minority as a short hand to describe relations between ethnic or religious groups, however, is recent. In fact, as it did not exist before 1919 when in the wake of World War I the idea of democracy and the idea of the homogeneous nation-state triumphed simultaneously. Prior to…

Lin Hierse holds an M.A. in Asian Studies and Urban Geography from the Humboldt University of Berlin. She currently works as a journalist and author in Germany, and has been an editor at die tageszeitung (taz) since 2019, where she wrote the column poetical correctness from 2020 to 2023. Her first novel, Wovon wir träumen [What we dream about], was published by Piper in 2022. In elegant and moving narration, the auto-fictional novel offers glimpses and sound bites from the protagonist’s life in Shanghai and Berlin, weaving in fragments from her mother and grandmother’s lives during China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Transitions between places in…

Sponsor(s): Institute of European Studies, Center for German and European Studies, UC Berkeley Department of History, German Historical Institute Washington | Pacific Office Berkeley Can public art museums transform society? Those who answer yes have often drawn on an early nineteenth century German aesthetic tradition which identified art as a source of personal and collective liberation in an age of revolutionary conflict. Drawing on Goff’s forthcoming book, The God Behind the Marble (University of Chicago Press, 2023), this talk charts the material struggles that accompanied the philosophical faith in art’s transformative powers in a time of looting, secularization, and war. It argues that these struggles– between…

Join us this Monday, September 18 for the FIRST Kaffeeklatsch of Fall 2023!    We’ll be in the library of the German Department  (Dwinelle 5401) with coffee, cookies and casual conversation in German from 2:00 pm – 3:30pm! The event is open to all levels of language proficiency, faculty, current, former, and future students, and anyone interested in German. Wir freuen uns auf euch!   Subsequent Kaffeklatsch sessions will occur at the same time and place EACH MONDAY until Thanksgiving. This is in contrast to the last two years, when Kaffeeklatsch was a fortnightly affair.  If you feel like helping us reduce waste, bring your own coffee mug.    Please feel free to forward…

Sponsor(s): Institute of European Studies, Center for German and European Studies, German Historical Institute Washington | Pacific Office Berkeley, UC Berkeley Department of German, UC Berkeley Department of History, Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative, UC Berkeley Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, UC Berkeley Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender As West Germans discussed “difference” after 1945, they sought out a self-consciously “Western” and liberal way to discuss difference. The talk examines different examples of how US social science on race shaped policies on migration in West Germany, including how invoking “Harlem” as a racialized space shaped urban housing policy for migrants in…

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Populärer Realismus. Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens In der Gegenwart hat sich international ein leicht lesbarer, gut übersetzbarer Erzählstil durchgesetzt, der Literatur nicht als Sprachkunst im engeren Sinne praktiziert (der Murakami-Kehlmann-Knausgård-Ferrante-Komplex). Der Vortrag fragt, welche Rezeptionsformen und Stilgemeinschaften diesen Populären Realismus tragen. Vor allem aber spürt er den Verfahren vermeintlicher und tatsächlicher Sinngebung nach, die dieser Literatur bleiben, von reiner Unterhaltung über alte und neue Spielarten des Midcult bis hin zu offenen Erzählformen des Kalkülromans. In Zusammenhang mit der publizistischen Schreibwerkstatt Kritisch kreativ bietet der Vortrag eine Vorschau auf Moritz Baßlers neues Buch Populärer Realismus: Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens, das am 15.…

Vorläufiger Wochenplan & Lektüreliste Journalistische Schreibwerkstatt „Kritisch Kreativ“ 22. bis 26. August 2022 University of California, Berkeley Department of German 3401 Dwinelle Hall Organisiert von Deniz Göktürk (UC Berkeley) und Michaela Predeick (Universität Köln) Gäste: Moritz Baßler (Universität Münster) und Ilija Trojanow (Autor und Publizist) Ziel des Workshops: Anhand von Texten der Teilnehmenden soll gemeinsam daran gearbeitet werden, einen Gedanken kurz und prägnant zu formulieren und in Form eines kurzen Essays (Zeitungsartikel, Blogpost etc.) darzulegen. Dabei geht es um publizistisches Schreiben für ein nicht nur akademisches Publikum. Kulturelle Hierarchien in der Medienpraxis, Debatten um ästhetische Qualität und aktuelle Tendenzen der…

April 19 & 20 – German Cabaret: Verkehrte Zeiten at 7:00 pm in B-4 Dwinelle Hall on April 19. A repeat performance will be held at 6:00 pm on April 20 in Dwinelle B-4. More details here.