I recently noticed that whenever I read a book there is a voice inside my head. It’s my own voice. Me talking – or rather thinking – in English. The curious thing is that the voice uses different accents depending on the nationality of the author or my mood.

I am able to hear and use these different accents because I know they exist. In school I only learned ‘standard’ American English, but the English language is actually much more colorful and exciting than standard English alone. As a future English teacher, I think that students should get the chance to get in contact with all the English varieties.

10 December 2014Access Americaadmin

The Chat(ter) Box Interview with Drew Hayden Taylor

By Maryann Henck

DHT Drew Hayden Taylor is an award-winning Canadian Ojibway author of plays, short stories, novels, and critical essays. He has lectured worldwide on a variety of Native issues and earned the reputation of a true cultural mediator versed in confronting cultural misunderstandings, stereotypes, and prejudices – preferably with humor. Recently, I conducted a Skype interview with him that I’d like to refer to it as the “chat(ter) box interview” since it all began with some informal chatting and turned into a bona fide interview. Curious? Then read on.
Read more »

3 December 2014Best Books & Fabulous Filmsadmin

12 Years a Slave

By Daria Radler

When Salomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) accepts a two-week job offer as a musician from two white men with whom he travels from Upstate New York to Washington, D.C., he does not expect that the last evening spent in friendly company will mark the turning point of his life. Beaten, robbed, and scared, he awakens in a small cell the next morning—his identity no longer of interest or importance. All of the sudden, he is a simple black man, a ‘nigger’ who is given the new name Platt, a slave who apparently ran away from his owner in Georgia. He spends twelve years at different plantations in Louisiana, far away from his family and old life, doing hard physical labor alongside other slaves while still holding on to his hope and belief of returning home one day.

25 November 2014Access Americaadmin

Marijuana in America: Election Night at the Pot Shop

By Corey Hutchins

Earlier this week, a state appeals court in Michigan ruled that a prosecutor’s “personal diatribe” in court against that state’s medical marijuana law spoiled a conviction in a pot-growing case where the evidence had otherwise appeared solid. In New York City, the mayor and police commissioner recently announced they’ll stop arresting people for pot possession and instead merely issue tickets. In Maine, pro-marijuana advocates believe their state could become the first in the Northeast where weed is legal.

When I read news like that, as a recent Colorado transplant, it’s hard not to let out a smug and self-satisfied yawn. I hear the voice of the first person I met behind the counter at a legal marijuana shop just outside Colorado Springs as he scanned my ID with a conspiratorial grin: “Welcome to the future.”

19 November 2014Creativity Corneradmin

Lonely

By Friederike Fischer

I wrote the short story “Lonely” in one of my university seminars. It was meant to be an assignment. Just an assignment. But my professor convinced me to enter the Daniil Pashkoff Prize for Creative Writing and submit my story. So I did. Even though my text didn’t win, I’m always grateful for new experiences, and for people believing in me.

“Lonely” is a story about a woman’s despair and obsession. She struggles with interpersonal relationships and tries to keep everything around her in perfect order. When her boyfriend doesn’t appear for dinner on Valentine’s Day, she starts to question his feelings…

Lonely

Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock’s steady rhythm fills the air. It is dark. Only now and then, when a car drives by, a flash of light hits the room. Someone is sitting at the kitchen table, frozen. Everything seems to be prepared for a dinner, but the meal on both plates is cold and the candles already burnt down. In the middle of the table a lone vase is awaiting a bouquet of roses. Waiting. Still waiting.

12 November 2014Access Americaadmin

Of Conceptual Haunts and Tacit Assumptions:
A Current Take on Multiculturalism

By Isabell May

On January 9, 2014, Berndt Ostendorf, Professor Emeritus of North American Cultural History at the Amerika-Institut, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, gave a talk on “The Rise and Fall of Multicultural Theory and Practice: The Ideological Contradictions of Belonging” in the Leuphana lecture series, “Maple Leaf & Stars and Stripes.”

Ostendorf is a widely published researcher on areas as diverse as the cultural history of immigration, the politics of difference, multiculturalism, creolization and circumatlantic diasporas, American popular culture, the culture industry, New Orleans, and American music. He is also a board member of the Rat für Migration, a German migration policy think tank. Read more »