Blog

A Note to Readers: Our blog includes news items, research materials,
and teaching resources – browse past posts by month on the right. If
you would like to contribute your own syllabus or other materials (in
English or German), please contact us at mgp@berkeley.edu.

Authenticity Sucks! A Biased Manifesto from Future Documentarists

Image generated by Open AI DALL-E2 Students taking the course on Documentary Forms (Film 125 / German 184) in Fall 2022, taught by Deniz Göktürk and Qingyang Freya Zhou, discovered possibilities of engagement with the world through documentary cinema, old and new. … Continue reading

Work in Single Takes, Vol. 2

Students taking the course on Documentary Forms (Film 125 / German 184) in Fall 2022, taught by Deniz Göktürk and Qingyang Freya Zhou, learned about everyday practices of documentary production: filmmakers observing, participating, and reflecting, as they record how human and non-human … Continue reading

“Auf den Trümmern das Paradies”? Ilija Trojanow’s Utopian Prerogative

wie eine meuterei bricht das glück, wie ein löwe aus. ——Hans Magnus Enzensberger: utopia In this blog post, Berkeley Ph.D. student Anna Lynn Dolman reflects on Ilija Trojanow’s Mosse Lecture on “The Utopian Prerogative,” specifically how literature can sketch a … Continue reading

“Nation of Assimilation”

What does it mean to make an investigative documentary on one’s family history? How could the filmmaker and her interviewees represent the joyful and eventful, as well as the painful and awkward episodes of their most intimate past? In this … Continue reading

Behind the Apron: An Investigatory Dive into the Lives of Overlooked “Essential Workers”

Scan products. Put items in bags. Collect payments. The repetitive and monotonous movements of supermarket cashiers often went unnoticed by the average customer — until the pandemic introduced the practice of self-checkout, which reminds us of the indispensable labor of … Continue reading

Work in Single Takes

Picture source: Harun Farocki GbR Students taking the course on Documentary Forms (Film 125 / German 184) in spring 2022, taught by Deniz Göktürk and Alina Predescu, discovered possibilities of engagement with the world through documentary cinema old and new. … Continue reading

Polyphone Auseinandersetzungen mit kulturellen Bildern, Vorurteilen und Rassismus im Hörspiel “Bitmemiş – not finished yet” (2019) von Ralf Haarmann und Tuğsal Moğul

Picture Source: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Guest contributor Monika Preuß (Technische Universität Dortmund), author of the MGP blog post series on German radio plays, analyzes the portrayal of lived experiences of Turkish German immigrants across generations in Ralf Haarmann’s recent radio play, … Continue reading

Writing as an (Im)migrant: Calls to Action in Fatma Aydemir’s “Work”

In the latest blog post inspired by Berkeley’s “Archives of Migration” conversation series and Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies seminar on “Cultures of Migration,” Kavina Peters (Berkeley Freshman, Environmental Economics and Policy major) analyzes Fatma Aydemir’s short essay … Continue reading

Multilingual Lives, Monolingual Institutions

Picture copyright Ⓒ Anna Becker In the latest blog post inspired by author Olga Grjasnowa’s book talk “Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit” and Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies seminar on “Cultures of Migration,” Anna Becker (Berkeley Senior, Interdisciplinary Migration … Continue reading

Minds of Their Own: Documenting Voices of Migrants to the GDR

Picture Source: Eigensinn im Bruderland Helen Schiff, visiting student researcher from the University of Konstanz, analyzes a prize-winning multimedia online documentary, Eigensinn im Bruderland (2019), which presents a humanistic view on the multifaceted experiences of Immigrants of Color to the … Continue reading

The Perception of Language in Countries of Migration

Picture Source: Etsy Inspired by author Olga Grjasnowa’s talk on “Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit” and by Prof. Deniz Göktürk’s German and American Studies course on “Cultures of Migration,” L.A. native Emily Yepez (Berkeley Freshman, Chemical Biology major) reflects on her … Continue reading

Multilingual Intimacy and Pluralistic Identities

Picture Source: favim.com Angèle Yehe Zheng, author of “Letter by a Grateful Immigrant” and “Humor in Heidelberg: Saša Stanišić’s Herkunft,” reflects on multilingual speakers’ exclusive use of one language for distinct purposes in the following blog post inspired by Olga … Continue reading

Letter by a Grateful Immigrant

Picture Source: International Financial Law Review Having reflected on the power of humor in her latest MGP blog post on Saša Stanišić’s Herkunft, guest author Angèle Yehe Zheng (Graduating Senior in Philosophy, UC Berkeley) returns to present a creative piece … Continue reading

Humor in Heidelberg: Saša Stanišić’s Herkunft

After reflecting on the connection between multilingualism and multidirectional creativity in Ilija Trojanow’s Nach der Flucht, MGP editor Elise Volkmann returns, with co-author Angèle Yehe Zheng, for another blog post on the healing power of humor against trauma in Saša … Continue reading

Zerrissene Perspektiven auf die Anhörung im Asylverfahren in zwei Hörspielen

Bildquelle: Bayerischer Rundfunk Guest contributor Monika Preuß (Technische Universität Dortmund), author of the three-part MGP blog post series on radio plays about the NSU trial, analyzes the rare representation of the interrogation of asylum seekers in two recent German radio … Continue reading