In his assessment of Contemporary German Fiction, Stuart Taberner suggests that “literary fiction is uniquely suited to probing and subverting a public-political discourse…literature can serve to deflate overblown rhetoric and to undermine official representations of reality.” Extending his claim to non-literary texts as well we invite proposals that investigate Turkish-German texts as sites of reflection, contestation and interrogation of public German discourses. A central question concerns how texts by Turkish-German artists not only voice alternative perspectives on Germany’s present, but also develop unique ways of accessing and reconstructing its past. In Turkish-German music, film, and literature the cultural effects of crucial moments in German history like the Holocaust, the Cold War, and reunification are explored, reflected and commented upon. This panel would like to explore how Turkish-German texts represent interactions of various cultural, national, ethnic, and political contexts—and how they alter the parameters of established discourses on key issues such as integration, German national identity, memory and remembrance in the process.

Please send abstracts by January 15th to both Ela Gezen egezen@german.umass.edu and Berna Gueneli guenelib@grinnell.edu.