What do pornography, fake Indians, the climate crisis, and firefighters in New York City have in common? Well, these are all topics of this season’s lecture series “Maple Leaf & Stars and Stripes.”
As usual, the lecture series starts out with a bang: Award-winning documentary filmmaker and one of Canada’s leading writers, Drew Hayden Taylor, will present his new movie, The Pretendians. The film, which celebrates its German premiere at Leuphana University Lüneburg, asks the question why so many people in the public eye claim Native heritage. Taylor, himself an Anishnaabe and resident of Curve Lake First Nation reserve, is making his 5th trip to Lüneburg.
And if that’s not enough, we also feature Anne Nelson, American journalist, author, playwright, and lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She’ll join us via Zoom to discuss her play, The Guys. Written shortly after 9/11, it features a firefighter who seeks the help of a writer to compose eulogies for his dead comrades.
Art and pornography are at the heart of Anne Breimaier’s talk, which will critically reconstruct a lecture of radical feminist Dorchen Leidholdt in 1980. Breimaier will relate Leidholdt’s critique of a commodification of violence against women in visual media of the 1980 to contemporary image cultures.
The lecture series wraps up with a talk by Johan Höglund, “An end to Eating? Future Food Imaginaries and the Climate Emergency.” Höglund will discuss how fiction set in a future transformed by climate change describes the act of ingesting food as “feeding” (what babies and animals do) rather than “eating” (what humans are typically understood to be doing and what counts as a social and cultural practice).
For the poster as well as the dates and times:
A Story Beyond Words: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
LGBTQ+ Pride is usually a cause for celebration. It is meant to express the joy of being alive and being seen in a society where an identity that diverges from the norm easily leads to exclusion, isolation, and fear. Somehow, it makes sense, then, that the idea of Pride is born from suffering, tragedy, and anger, too. The 2017 Netflix documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson presents a stirring testament to a life and death that are universally meaningful in the struggle for LGBTQ+ existence, then and now.
Nuclear Power and the Road to Ecomodernism
What if a belief you deeply held and one that’s reciprocated by your entire social circle is actually wrong and harmful? In the spirit of my last blog, I want to tell the story of how I changed my mind on a major issue. The position I want to challenge is deeply engrained in the DNA of the mainstream environmental movement, especially here in Germany: the opposition to nuclear power.
Having Fun with Language on German American Day 2022
In countries, such as Poland and the Netherlands, learning German is on the rise. Yet, in the U.S., it’s been declining for the past hundred years. Numbers of students learning German have decreased from roughly two million in 1910 to a little over one million today. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that German programs have been closing all over the U.S. The very liberal arts college I attended as a bachelor student in Indianola, Iowa – Simpson College – eliminated its German program a few years ago. So in preparation for this German American Day (Oct. 6), I decided to attempt to do some PR for German.
Recently, while I was surfing the web, I came across something that almost knocked me for a loop. It’s nothing bad, just a 58-letter word. So let’s hear that drum roll….
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ViZqQkddCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ViZqQkddCc
That word is: Kurzfristen-energie-versorgungs-sicherungs-maßnahmen-verordnung.
When in Doubt, Ask a Native Author! The Winnetou Debate
After a storm of protests from enraged parents concerning issues of (mis)representation and cultural appropriation in the new children’s movie, The Young Chief Winnetou (2022), the German publisher, Ravensburger Verlag, withdrew the companion book and puzzle to the film. Soon thereafter, the main German TV station (ARD) announced they would no longer broadcast the popular Winnetou movies from the 1960s based on Karl May’s novels. Everyone seems to have their take on the current controversy; yet, there’s been some criticism regarding issues of paternalism due to the lack of Native voices in the debate. That’s why the American Studies Blog has gone directly to the source and interviewed Drew Hayden Taylor acclaimed Canadian Anishnaabe author, frequent flyer to Germany, and creator of the documentary, Searching for Winnetou (2018).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvM4V6HLJAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvM4V6HLJAI
Going against the Grain: Declaring My Love for Cars 2
Everybody hates Cars 2 – and I just don’t understand why. First of all, let me make a confession: I’m 25 years old and a Disney nerd. I love watching animated movies – as long as they’re well made. And Cars 2, even after more than ten years, is still my all-time feel-good movie.
It has everything you could wish for: Uplifting words, funny jokes, and a world you can lose yourself in. There’s barely anything that’s hateful or triggering, and I love joining the characters on their journey. Yet, most critics have characterized Cars 2 as violent and illogical, calling it the worst Pixar movie ever – and I just can’t wrap my head around it. How could I feel so differently from everyone else?