Queer Berlin

Some Final Thoughts on the Block 4 2017 #FemGeniusesinBerlin

Kai (Dylan)

Photo Credit: Dylan Compton

This podcast—led and produced by Kai Mesman-Hallman—provides some final reflections on the Block 4 2017 section of Hidden Spaces, Hidden Narratives: Intersectionality Studies in Berlin with Professor Heidi R. Lewis. Throughout the block, the #FemGeniusesinBerlin have taken walking tours, visited museums and cultural centers, and met with activists and artists in the city to conduct situated examinations of how the identities of marginalized people and communities in Germany (especially in Berlin)—such as Black Germans, Turkish Germans, migrants, refugees, victims of Neo-Nazi terrorism and police brutality, and LGBTQI communities—are constructed, particularly how these constructions are dependent on racism, heterosexism, colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression. Additionally, we examined how these communities resist, reject, revise, and reproduce these narratives as they construct their own subjectivities.

Kai is a junior at Colorado College majoring in Psychology, and is originally from San Diego, CA. She is especially interested in consciousness and the ways our brains’ processing and collecting information can shape our beliefs and thoughts. She spends her free time with her dog and watching conspiracy theory videos.

Joining Kai in her discussion are Uma Scharf—a Baltimore, MD native and junior at Colorado College majoring in Neuroscience, and Drew Ceglinski—a Bath, ME native and junior at Colorado College majoring in Geology.

 

Block 4 2017 FemGeniuses in Berlin Podcast Index:
Click here to view a slideshow, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter to see even more pictures and videos!

“Jewish History & Culture Walking Tour” by Maggie Mehlman
“Das Verbogene Museum” by Anna Balaguer
“Interkulturelles Frauenzentrum S.U.S.I.” by Bridget O’Neill
“Women’s Perspective Walking Tour” by Caroline Olin
“Jüdisches Museum Berlin” by Britta Lam
“Jewish AntiFa Berlin” by Dylan Compton
“Berliner Unterwelten” by Atiya Harvey
“BlackBox Cold War Exhibition” by Karl Hirt
“Generation ADEFRA” by Maya Littlejohn
“Queer Berlin Walking Tour” by Judy Fisher
“Queer City: Stories from São Paulo” by D. Adams
“A Right to Mourn; A Right to Monument” by Maddie Sorensen
“The Spirit of 1968 Walking Tour” by Anabel Simotas
“Reframing Worlds: Mobilität und Gender aus Postkolonial Feministischer Perspektive” by Elsa Godtfredsen
“Queer@School” by Drew Ceglinski
“RomaniPhen: Rromnja Archiv” by Kendall Stoetzer
“Reflections on the Asian Diaspora in Germany” by Uma Scharf
“Street Art Workshop & Tour” by Wynter Scott

To read and/or listen to the finales and view the indices and slideshows for previous FemGeniuses in Berlin, click here. 

Queer Berlin Walking Tour

Picture I

Photo Credit: Caroline Olin

This podcast—led and produced by Judy Fisher—examines our Queer Berlin walking tour with Jared Pool. During this tour, we try to understand why Berlin is sometimes considered the “Queer capital of Europe” due to its relationship with gay and lesbian rights despite the history of “Section 175” of the German penal code, which criminalized homosexuality for decades after the end of World War II. The tour takes participants through Schöneberg, the home of Marlene Dietrich that was chronicled by Christopher Isherwood and Otto Dix; the Eldorado, one of Berlin’s oldest gay bars that was frequented by openly gay Nazi SA leader Ernst Röhm; the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted by the Nazis; and Kreuzberg. It examines the advocacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, whose Institute for Sexual Science was shut down in 1933 and whose library destroyed in the infamous Nazi book-burning; queer figures in the administration of Prussian King Frederick the Great; and openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit, among others.

Picture II

Photo Credit: Judy Fisher

Judy Fisher is a Sophomore at Colorado College from Oklahoma. She is a first-generation student, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and is active in the Native American Student Union (NASU) at Colorado College. As a Feminist and Gender Studies major and Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies minor, she has developed a focus on Indigenous Feminism and the different intersections of her own identity as a queer, Native woman from a low income background attending a predominantly white institution (PWI).

Picture III

Photo Credit: Judy Fisher

Joining Judy in her discussion are Elsa Godtfredsen—a Seattle, WA native and junior at Colorado College majoring in Biology and minoring in Creative Writing, and Dylan Compton—a Tulsa, OK native majoring in Religion and International Affairs with a Chinese language minor.

NOTE: The photo credit for the featured image also belongs to Judy Fisher.