Dagmar Brunow om Fatih Akin
ifall ni har vägarna förbi ;o)
The Warwick Workshop
for Interdisciplinary German Studies
Dagmar Brunow
University of Hamburg / University of Halmstad
‘Transnational filmmaking as national counter-historiography: Fatih Akin's We forgot to go back’
In its performative mode Fatih Akin's autobiographical documentary Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (We Forgot to Go Back, Germany 2001) constitutes a memory work which contests the exclusion of migrant and diasporic experiences from official German historiography. Therefore, autobiographical filmmaking, in folding private recollections into the public sphere, can be regarded as a counter-practice to the hegemonic national discourse. Yet, while counter-practices often imply taking a somewhat essentialist, homogenic stand as a migrant or diasporic subject, I argue that Akin's film employs aesthetic strategies which defy essentialism. My paper will analyse how Akin's film opposes notions of homogeneity and authenticity both by pointing at the situatedness of knowledge and by decoupling identity from territory through the use of music and the mapping of urban space.
Dagmar Brunow teaches film studies at Halmstad University College in Sweden, at Linnaeus University in Växjö and at Lund University (Sweden) and is currently completing a PhD at Hamburg University (Germany). Her thesis deals with aesthetic strategies in Black British and Asian British avant-garde filmmaking as well as with questions of canonisation and diasporic memory. Her work as a literary translator comprises more than 30 books, among them Stig Björkman's interview book with Lars von Tier (Trier über von Trier) and The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Taschen). She also works as a radio editor at the independent radio station FSK 93,0 in Hamburg and as a contributor to the critical journal of popular culture testcard. Beiträge zur Popgeschichte.
Tuesday 23 February, 5:00 pm
Humanities H2.02
All welcome!
The Warwick Workshop
for Interdisciplinary German Studies
Dagmar Brunow
University of Hamburg / University of Halmstad
‘Transnational filmmaking as national counter-historiography: Fatih Akin's We forgot to go back’
In its performative mode Fatih Akin's autobiographical documentary Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (We Forgot to Go Back, Germany 2001) constitutes a memory work which contests the exclusion of migrant and diasporic experiences from official German historiography. Therefore, autobiographical filmmaking, in folding private recollections into the public sphere, can be regarded as a counter-practice to the hegemonic national discourse. Yet, while counter-practices often imply taking a somewhat essentialist, homogenic stand as a migrant or diasporic subject, I argue that Akin's film employs aesthetic strategies which defy essentialism. My paper will analyse how Akin's film opposes notions of homogeneity and authenticity both by pointing at the situatedness of knowledge and by decoupling identity from territory through the use of music and the mapping of urban space.
Dagmar Brunow teaches film studies at Halmstad University College in Sweden, at Linnaeus University in Växjö and at Lund University (Sweden) and is currently completing a PhD at Hamburg University (Germany). Her thesis deals with aesthetic strategies in Black British and Asian British avant-garde filmmaking as well as with questions of canonisation and diasporic memory. Her work as a literary translator comprises more than 30 books, among them Stig Björkman's interview book with Lars von Tier (Trier über von Trier) and The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Taschen). She also works as a radio editor at the independent radio station FSK 93,0 in Hamburg and as a contributor to the critical journal of popular culture testcard. Beiträge zur Popgeschichte.
Tuesday 23 February, 5:00 pm
Humanities H2.02
All welcome!
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