Lectures | Presentations | Talks
SATURDAY
Solidarity against classism. Organize, Intervene, Redistribute | Francis Seeck | Saturday, 13:00
Solidarisch gegen Klassismus – organisieren, intervenieren, umverteilen is the first German-language anthology on the topic. The focus is on lived anti-classist strategies.
The 26 texts range from activist experiences to theoretical discussions to personal essays. Some are angry, others more questioning, some are autobiographical, many personal, some more soberly descriptive or analytical, others poetic. The essays discuss strategies against classism in political contexts, in educational institutions, and against shame; they report on anti-classist interventions in the women’s and lesbian movement and convey ways to organize against the jobcenter or landlords*.
Classism refers to discrimination based on class origin or class membership. Classism is directed against people from the poverty or working class, for example against low-income, unemployed or homeless people or against working-class children. Classism impacts life expectancy and limits access to housing, educational attainment, health care, power, participation, recognition, and money.
Often, discussions of classism foreground the white worker. In fact, many trans* people, single mothers, and people who experience racism are affected by classism. The contributions highlight the interconnectedness of class with racism and sexism. The anthology will be introduced by Francis Seeck, one of the editors.
Revolution at Point Zero: Domestic Work, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici | Lecture by Friederike Beier | Saturday, 15:00
Silvia Federici has inspired generations of feminists through her political activism and writings. As a co-founder of the international Wage for Housework campaign, she has laid the foundation for theorizing that centers on life and its social and societal reproduction.
Marxist and feminist theories are critiqued and recomposed so that they can capture and explain the importance of domestic labor to capitalism and the privatization of services and commons. Revolution at Point Zero brings together Federici’s most important texts of the last fifty years, which to this day have lost none of their political poignancy or relevance. On the contrary, in light of the current crisis of social reproduction and the worldwide women’s strike movement, reading them offers building blocks not only for an analysis of social contexts but also for a feminist revolution.
„If the women’s movement wants to regain momentum and stop being just another prop of a hierarchical system, it must address the material foundations of women’s lives.“ – Silvia Federici
Friederike Beier is author of the preface and editor of the series Theories and Struggles of Social Reproduction.
stolzeaugen.books – the first publishing house by and for people with experiences of racism in Germany | Lecture & Introduction of stolzeaugen.bokks | Saturday, 15:00
The voices and expertises of BiPoC and MIRE (people with experiences of intersectionality and racism) are still too often overheard in all literary formats, or branded as marginal. It’s time for the perspectives of a very large segment of the population to become more visibile! Our first publication appeared on February 19, 2021. „Texte nach Hanau“ gathers the voices of 50 people, their hopes, pain and life realities in 63 texts. The second book is the first part of a children’s book series, which deals with socio-political issues from an intersectional perspective. The book „Samira und die Sache mit den Babys“ by Souzan AlSabah and Özlem Sakalkesen will be published on August 01, 2021.
Disrupting Remembrance – the Fall of the Wall from a Migrant and Jewish Perspective | Lydia Lierke | Saturday, 17:00
The fall of the Wall in 1989 was followed by a unification process that massively threatened migrant and Jewish lives in Germany. In the ritualized culture of remembrance, the experience of this epochal break from the perspective of the migrant and Jewish population has long remained a blank space. The anthology „Erinnern stören“ aims to make these unknown stories and perspectives on German-German unification visible again and to recall the struggles for participation in the 1980s, incisive experiences around the fall of the Berlin Wall, and fights against racism in the 1990s. It includes stories of civil rights and asylum struggles of former so called gastarbeiter, of refugees in the FRG and the GDR, contributions about the stubbornness of contract laborers, of international students at the time, about Jewish life in East and West, and about the struggles of Sinti and Roma in divided Germany.
The co-editor Lydia Lierke will present the anthology as well as the analyses and experiences of the interviewees.
Jail is part of it – The prison as a scene of social warfare and part of anarchist struggles | anarchistische Bibliothek „Die Sturmflut“ | Saturday, 17:00
Social revolutionary struggles cannot be thought without the possibility of imprisonment. On the contrary, prisons are very visible places of social misery in which society is reflected, whose order we want to put a quick end to. We want to talk about the situation behind the walls, possibilities of action in imprisonment as well as solidarity with imprisoned anarchists.
Die Sommer | Reading by Ronya Othman | Saturday, 19:00
The village is located in northern Syria, close to Turkey. Leyla spends every summer there. She smells it and tastes it. She knows its stories. She knows where the suitcases are hidden when the inhabitants have to flee again. Leyla is the daughter of a German and a Yazidi Kurd. She sits in her high school near Munich, and in all summer vacations on the ground in the Yeshidi village of her grandparents. On the Internet, she sees Aleppo destroyed by Assad, the murder of the Yazidis by IS, and right next to them the carefree photos of her German friends. Leyla will have to make a decision.
SUNDAY
We know what we want. Women’s revolution in northern and eastern Syria | editors collective* | Sunday, 13:00
A delegation of the feminist campaign „Gemeinsam Kämpfen“ traveled for three months in winter 2018/2019 through Northeast Syria/Rojava, where self-administration was declared in 2012 in the course of the Syrian Revolution. The basis of self-administration is Democratic Confederalism, a social model developed by Abdullah Öcalan and based on the three pillars of democracy, ecology and gender liberation. While women’s determined resistance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) has received media attention, the revolutionary potential of the ideas behind the struggle has gone largely unnoticed. The aspect of „women’s revolution“ hardly found its way into public discourse. The aim of the delegation trip was to make the aspects of the women’s revolution in Northeast Syria more visible. Back in Germany, participants of the delegation pass on the impressions and experiences gathered during the trip at events. The focus is on social restructuring from the perspective of women in civil society, self-governing structures and the military. What makes the revolution a women’s revolution? What does the grassroots democratic social project look like in concrete implementation? What has changed in the everyday life of women? How can a social alternative to capitalism and patriarchy be lived in the 21st century? And what can we learn from it?
The Fascist Century. New-Right Discourses on the Occident, Identity, Europe and Neoliberalism | Volkmar Wölk, Felix Schilk und Friedrich Burschel | Sunday, 13:00
Mussolini’s 1932 prediction of a century of fascism reaches to the present day, as around the world ethnic, nationalist and in many ways fascist movements are on the rise, authoritarian regimes are in power or involved in governments. Right-wing thinking and fascist ideology are respectable again today and call themselves „new,“ even though the ideas behind them are stone-old and their roots reach deep down into the 20th century.
In their contributions, the authors of this volume, Julian Bruns, Felix Korsch, Felix Schilk, Natascha Strobl, and Volkmar Wölk, examine the charged concepts of „Occident,“ „Europe,“ „liberalism,“ and „identity“ in terms of their origins and development, and what meaning they have today for a New Right that invokes, among other things, the so-called Conservative Revolution and fascism of the 1920s. Echoes of war, violence and terrorism can be heard. The titular Mussolini quote is the subject of the book’s contribution by the great British fascism scholar Roger Griffin.
Mobilizable Germans. A political classification of the „Corona rebels“ | eklat_ms | Sunday, 15:00
The system is mean, but not secret.
This booklet provides a reflection on the basic ideological aspects that lie behind the mobilization of the so-called „Corona rebels.“
The so-called „hygiene demos“ have shown: Quite a few people in Germany are open to regressive mobilization. This rebellion, reduced to its gesture, is meant to conceal the individuals‘ incomprehensible social powerlessness, while the real reasons for powerlessness remain untouched. It is a variety of conformist revolt that acts subversively and instigates an illusory rebellion against an imagined power. It releases authoritarian fantasies, indulges punitive needs, and yearns for collectivity and leadership.
The brochure „Mobilizable Germans“ provides a reflection on the basic ideological aspects of this mobilization. It shows to what extent the unfolding narrative corresponds to the usual patterns of regressive social criticism and conspiracy myths. This makes it possible to explain why even unsuspicious actors were able to get close to the extreme right through a momentum of their own – a deeper affinity is revealed.
Editors and authors: eklat_ms is an anti-fascist group from Münster, which was founded in 2018 to oppose the increasing authoritarian formation of society with radical left criticism and practice. Meanwhile, the group is organized in the alliance …ums Ganze!, in the European network Beyond Europe and in the campaign Nationalismus ist keine Alternative (NikA).
Empowerment and Resistance – Inspiring Encounters with Audre Lorde | Marion Kraft | Sunday, 15:00
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) is one of the most influential African American authors* of the 20th century. The works of the Black lesbian warrior poet – as she called herself – and activist, essayist, and novelist remain groundbreaking and relevant to Black, feminist*, and broader liberation movements internationally today. This volume illustrates Black women’s connections across borders and differences. It offers a condensed overview of Audre Lorde’s life, vision, and philosophy. Marion Kraft, a close friend of Audre Lorde’s, presents personal and multifaceted essays on Audre Lorde’s work, life, and vision in this book. In an interview from 1986, Audre Lorde herself has her say. The book was first published in English by Marion Kraft on the occasion of Audre Lorde’s 25th death anniversary and is now finally available in German. It is a political as well as personal homage to Audre Lorde and her important transnational, literary and activist work.
Participation forbidden. G20 protest and the trial of Fabio V. | Jamila Baroni und Michèle Winkler | Sunday, 17:00
In July 2017, Fabio V., aged 18, travels from Italy to Hamburg and takes part in a demonstration against the G20 summit. An hour later, he is arrested and held in pre-trial detention for almost five months, although no crimes can be proven against him personally. Even before the summit, the state, the police and the media had created a mood against any kind of protest. Now an example is to be made. Fabio’s mother, who is relocating to Hamburg for the period of pre-trial detention, describes from a personal point of view the struggle for her son against a judiciary that – fueled by politics and the media – initiates numerous criminal proceedings against people whose guilt lies in having claimed a constitutionally guaranteed right for themselves.
The author, Jamila Baroni, Fabio’s mother, spent many months in Germany trying to obtain freedom and justice for her son. The collection of thoughts, information and notes taken before and during the long process allowed her to write the book. The book was published in Italian in 2019 by the publisher „Agenzia X“ and translated in 2020 by „UNRAST“ as „Teilnahme verboten – G20-Protest und der Prozess von Fabio V.“. It is kind of a reportage on her experience, but with the knowledge that the same thing could have happened to any of us.
Michèle Winkler took part in the criminal trial against Fabio as an observer for the Comitee for fundamental rights and democracy. She wrote an epilogue for the German version of the book. Michèle can talk about the political and legal implications of the trial and the G20 summit in Hamburg.
for your ears
Welcome to Transistan | The Initiative Postmigrantisches Radio introduces itself | Sunday, 17:00
We are a group of people from different places who critically engage with social structures of domination and power through the medium of radio. We call ourselves postmigrant, migrant, queer, kanack, BPOC and represent everything the AfD and Horst Seehofer are afraid of. We make difference the starting point of our work and represent our struggles with it on the radio through discourse, politics, music and pop culture.
Together we invite you to listen and participate. With music and Spoken Word we want to present our project. We want to make unheard, ludicrous situated knowledge audible. In addition, we talk about our previous work, play our favorite music and present our new present our new works and projects.
for your eyes
Copines | Photos by Rolle
The photographs collected in Copines were taken between 2010 and 2017 in Sofia and Perpignan. In the first part, Rolle accompanies and portrays people in Fakulteta, one of the largest Roma settlements in Bulgaria.
In the second part, he documents graffiti in St. Jacques, a neighborhood of Perpignan, in southern France. Friendships and love relationships are memorized here in recurring lists, creating registers of „couples“ and „copines.“
Rolle is a photographer, illustrator, filmmaker, musician and fan of roller skating and currently lives in Kassel. For the Bookfair he exhibits the photographs from Copines on walls of houses around the venue.
For fans of graffiti, this book will introduce them to an entirely different form of writing. For the people of St. Jacques, the book will become an
