Arghhhh!
12.03.2026 20:14
👍 2
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
Arghhhh!
Germany’s shortsighted culture cut of the day, episode 3
Or just have rich parents
Cultural cut of the day: German foreign ministry axes international volunteering programme for young people kulturweit. But don’t worry kids, the army will take you abroad! www.kulturweit.de/foerderstopp
An abandoned cupcake with labia frosting, on a sad windowsill
Someone didn’t want their vulva cake yesterday, I guess.
I woke up very happy.
I dreamed I won the International Booker Prize and they gave me a big gold and onyx necklace and then I immediately went on a no-email writing retreat in Birmingham.
Sarcastic or not sarcastic, either way this is good.
I’ve rarely been this angry.
The abrupt closure of the Goethe-Institut in Exile is what Germany’s CDU culture guy Weimer might like to do with the Berlinale. Sadly, artists in exile don’t have the global support that the film festival garners. Daniel Bax draws the parallel and attended the relocated event on Palestinian writing
Tenure-track professorship in Anglophone Lit / New Media Studies in Göttingen, actively looking for people who can teach Comparative and World Lit 👀
uni-goettingen.de/en/695692.html
…more pertinently, they’re no longer embarrassed to act on that. No understanding that the arts are international and grow for longer than a four-year parliamentary term.
I’m putting the abrupt Goethe-Institut in Exile closure in a big toxic pot with the cdu’s Berlinale nonsense and the Berlin cdu’s Oyoun defunding and antisemitism funding scandal. Culture? They only want to pay for it if the form and content are suitably conservative, and…
Many examples in my tr. of Clemens Meyer’s The Projectionists, but it hasn’t edited yet.
(As opposed to the other German novel on the list…)
Yaaaay! Couldn’t have happened to a better book! Very pleased about this, and may the best woman win.
💔
Because it happened literally yesterday, with no advance notice.
Just a bit. That’s presumably one or two livelihoods gone (though the “Team” button doesn’t work). To say nothing of events programming and community.
Screenshot from the website showing two events marked CANCELLED: a night about Palestinian literature and a reading group on Iranian activist Sanaa Azimipour.
What might have caused this sudden withdrawal of funding?
On behalf of those Goethe-Instituts worldwide that are no longer able to operate in their host countries, or only to a limited extent, the Goethe-Institut in Exile project, which was launched in October 2022, aims to provide a platform and a space for encounters and dialogue. The aim is to strengthen existing networks and forge new civil society links at an international level. In this way, important regional and global discourses are continued and made visible and audible.
Not any more, though. Upcoming events are simply cancelled, as per the website.
From the website: “In recent years, cultural institutions such as the Goethe-Institut have repeatedly been forced to close or relocate their work. In countries such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Belarus and Sudan, important spaces for international exchange, art, culture, dissent and critical discourse have been lost. Artists and partners with whom the Goethe-Institut has worked for many years have been forced to leave their home countries.
Ironic, huh?
Shameful of the GI to end its Goethe Institut in Exile project like this, apparently from one day to the next.
Thank you!
Thank you for your remote electronic validation. I need it on this occasion.
Luckily I only found out afterwards, so less intimidating than talking (in German) about Irmgard Keun in front of her very lovely daughter.
Also: we did a whole panel discussion about Christa Wolf in English and it was very good because we were a great team, @ajbwells.bsky.social and @paulscraton.bsky.social and me, and then Christa Wolf’s daughter Tinka turned out to be in the audience. Good grief!
Ok I read one of my brand new short stories at an event and didn’t die.
Come along to our Christa Wolf event in Berlin tomorrow to hear @katyderbyshire.bsky.social read from her translations—and more—while we explore Wolf's post-Wall legacy in discussion & texts submitted from all across town >> psst also it's free >>
www.lettretage.de/Termine/chri...
