Mal wieder Gast im Uni-Biotop

Vor ungefähr einem Jahr hat Karein mich zu einer Veranstaltung an der hiesigen Uni eingeladen. Da treffen sich Studierende, die an der University of Michigan Deutsch lernen. Fast alle studieren noch ganz andere Fächer, aber wo man schon mal hier ist … warum sich nicht auch noch nebenbei ne Fremdsprache reinpfeifen? Wann machen die das alles??? Ich bin jedesmal wieder platt, was die Kinder hier alles draufhaben, wie offen und unverstellt sie einem begegnen, wie Erwachsene, die ganz selbstverständlich mit Erwachsenen reden. Nicki sagt: „Das sind Leute, die ihre Highschool mit ner glatten Eins abgeschlossen haben.“ Als Lehrer wär das hier ein Traumort. Natürlich ist mir klar, dass die ganze Institution komplett privilegiert ist und zugeschüttet wird mit Geld, das dann halt nicht anderswo sein kann und so weiter. Alles problematisch. Aber heute ist mir das egal.

Jedenfalls sitzt man während der Deutschstunde beisammen, trinkt Kaffee und Tee, mümmelt Süßigkeiten und redet über irgendwas in dieser seltsamen, sperrigen Sprache aus der alten Welt. Manchmal werden Gäste eingeladen und heute war das eben ich. Ein paar von denen interessieren sich tatsächlich für Journalismus. Weil ihnen das Schreiben Spaß bringt. Oder weil Radio cool ist. Hach. To be young.

Vorher hab ich Karein ein paar mögliche Themen zugemailt und dann durften die jungen Leute bestimmen, was sie am meisten interessiert. Auf dem ersten Platz gelandet ist „Wie man Depressionen mit Psychedelika behandeln kann“. Ich hab gerade für Geo ne große Geschichte darüber geschrieben, die demnächst erscheinen soll. Beim Gespräch ist mir aufgefallen, dass die jungen Leute relativ gut über Magic Mushrooms informiert sind. Einer davon hat mal in einer Apotheke gearbeitet und mich dezent auf ein entsprechendes Detail in der US-Gesetzgebung hingewiesen. Alles eine Freude. Die Zauberpilze sind in Ann Arbor seit einiger Zeit nicht mehr verboten, Microdosing scheint mir nicht komplett unüblich zu sein. Bald mehr davon auf diesem Kanal.

By Jochen Metzger (jochen-metzger.de)

Second-Year Intensive German students meet with German high school students via zoom. Conversations range from family, school, music and hobbies to political and social topics, like gun control and climate activism.

Journalist and Freelance Writer Jochen Metzger talks about his book Alle Macht den Kindern in which he describes an experiment of giving his kids reign of the household for a month. For his blog post on the conversation with RC students: 

https://jochen-metzger.de/meine-erste-deutschstunde/

The Residential College German Program

presents

Margrit Straßburger

 in

BONJOUR BERLIN

February 17, 2019

5-7 pm 

Keene Theater

Mascha Kaléko (1907 Galicia -1975 Zürich)

When Kaléko’s poems first appeared in Berlin newspapers in 1929, they immediately drew praise. Her signature blend of irony, wit and melancholy captured the spirit of the times, and she won the hearts of Berliners with miniatures of everyday life that were both mocking and lyrical. Kaléko quickly rose to fame and was a regular at the literary Romanisches Café and the Kü Ka artist’s cabaret.  Some of her poems were set to music and performed by cabaret singers. The publication of her first volume of poetry, Das Lyrische Stenogrammheft, coincided with Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933. Her work was soon censored by the Nazis and her promising career cut short. In 1938, Kaléko, her husband Chemjo Vinaver, and their young son fled to New York. For the next two decades, Greenwich Village would become “something like a second home,” although the family struggled financially and Kaléko had to support the family writing copy for advertisements. In her third volume, Verse für Zeitgenossen, published in Boston in 1945, Kaléko reflects on her experience of exile and the loss of her homeland. Her poems are more sarcastic, less lightly humored than her earlier work in Berlin. One recognizes the voice of another exiled German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, whom she calls her forefather. Kaléko returned to Germany for the first time in 1956, giving poetry readings to large crowds. Three years later, she was to receive the prestigious Fontane literary prize by the Academy of Arts in Berlin, but refused it because one jury member was a former SS-Officer. In 1959, Kaléko moved to Jerusalem to support her husband’s career as a composer and scholar of Hasidic music. Not speaking Hebrew, Kaléko felt isolated and increasingly suffered health problems. After her son’s premature death, and the death of her husband five years later, Kaléko herself died in Zürich in 1975, on the way back to Jerusalem from a visit to Berlin.  Several volumes of poetry were published posthumously, although she remained largely forgotten until the occasion of her 100th birthday when a new biography, readings, concerts, and several exhibits throughout Germany led critics to declare Kaléko as the “most successful German-language female poet of the 20th Century.”

Margrit Straßburger

Straßburger is a German actress, chanteuse, voice-over actress and director who works in theater, radio and film. She received her theatrical training at the Ernst Busch Theater School in East Berlin and started her career at the Volksbühne, where she won a prize for her role as Mieze in Döblins Berlin Alexanderplatz. In 1988, while on theatrical tour in West Germany, Straßburger decided not to return to the East. A year later, the Wall fell. Since the 1990s, she has performed in theaters throughout Germany (Wuppertal, Hamburg, Berlin, München) and built a career as a solo artist. In 2008, she went back to school to study directing at the Theakademie in Berlin. In her solo work, Straßburger first studies deeply the life and art of an individual, then creates a literary collage of spoken word and song. Over 20 years, Straßburger has performed original dramatic monologues about Heinrich Heine, Bettina von Arnim, Anton Chekov, Anna Magdalena Bach, Franz Wedekind, Maria Stuart, Theodor Fontane, Helen Keller and Mascha Kaleko. She is currently working on an autobiographical piece.

Michele Papenfuss is a Master’s student in the . She received her bachelor’s degree in piano performance at Brigham Young University in 2016. Her senior recitatl

Thanks and Appreciations

This program was made possible with the generous support of the Residential College, the Germanic Languages Department, and Arts at Michigan. Thank you  Robby Griswold, Rudy Rutherford Thomas, Karly Shafer and Janet Shier for your advice, time and expertise. Also special thanks to my students, Camille Primeau and Hava Kaplan, for their translations of Kaleko’s poems. It has been particularly exciting and gratifying to work with such talented artists, Margrit Straßburger and Michele Papenfuss who met for the first time just yesterday.

Here's the writeup about the performance in the RC News: 

https://lsa.umich.edu/rc/news-events/all-news/search-news/guest-artist-margrit-strassburger-brings-her-one-woman-play-to-t.html