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Goodbye Germany? Migration, Culture, and the Nation State
October 28-30, 2004
Organized by Deniz Göktürk, Anton Kaes
in collaboration with Christian Buss, David Gramling, Michael Huffmaster,
Sabrina Rahman, Rob Schechtman*
Over the past half century, mass migrations have challenged and changed
nation states on a global scale. Contemporary Germany in particular
epitomizes many of the conflicts ascribed to immigration. As "guest
workers" and asylum seekers stay to become residents, the concept of a
national community based on ancestral lineage and cultural heritage has
been called into question. For some, the presence of roughly eight million
foreign-born, including new immigrants from Eastern Europe, Africa, and
Asia, spells the end of Germany as they know it. In their view, Germany is
not America * it will never be a "country of immigration." For others, a
multiethnic Germany means cosmopolitan openness, multicultural diversity,
and a chance to make good on the country's dark history in the early half
of the century. For them, Germany's new face is already an undeniable fact.
These two incompatible positions have often clashed, at times violently.
Why has multiculturalism become such a contested concept today? Where do
immigrant and native cultures interact? How are political, social, and
cultural borders negotiated in the new Europe? How can the extensive German
debates about national and cultural identity, citizenship, minority rights,
and Western values shed new light on current discussions in the United
States? These questions complicate hotly debated issues such as ethnic and
cultural hybridity, the rhetoric of diversity and identity, diaspora
communities, and the future of the nation state. Located at the
intersection between the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities,
these topics call for interdisciplinary analysis that is nonetheless aware
of local, historical, and linguistic specificities. Questions of aesthetic
form are of central importance for these investigations since film and
literature often succeed in destabilizing old binaries of "us and them"
and "here and there."
This international conference is part of an ongoing research project
initiated by Berkeley's Department of German and sponsored by the Center
for German and European Studies. The project includes an archive on German
multiculturalism and a forthcoming sourcebook. In the conference we want
to address the cultural friction points that arise from transnational
migration in postindustrial societies. We also want to reflect on the
consequences of multilingual and multilocal stories for histories of
national cultures as they are taught at American universities. UC
Berkeley's diverse campus (and its history of contentious debates) will
provide an ideal location for discussing the new multiethnic Germany as
well as the borders of German studies itself.
Participants include Leslie Adelson, Pheng Cheah, David Theo Goldberg,
David Hollinger, Minoo Moallem, Werner Sollors, Michael Watts, Ernst van
Alphen. A screening of "Kleine Freiheit / A Little Bit of Freedom" (2003)
and a workshop on "Cinema and Migration" will form part of the conference
with Yüksel Yavuz, the director of "Kleine Freiheit", in person.
"Multicultural Germany"
http://german.berkeley.edu/mg/
Deniz Gokturk
Department of German
5319 Dwinelle Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3243
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510-643-2004
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