kultur360: informed analysis of contemporary German-speaking society and culture

Edited and written by university professors and independent scholars, kultur360 produces original essays, reviews, and interviews that can be found in the PERSPECTIVES section. To help you see how these Perspectives relate to each other, we also group them by theme (CLUSTERS) and type (MODES). And if we find something interesting elsewhere, we link to it in EXTRAS.

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Recent Perspectives

The inauguration of Donald Trump, the rise of a right-wing extreme movement, the proliferation of "fake news": the time is ripe for Hannah Arendt.

 

Isaiah Lopaz, a black American artist living in Berlin, discusses his experiences of racism in the German capital.

 

German author Christopher Kloeble talks about Bavaria, translation, and Nobel laureate Bob Dylan.

 

Audiences play the leading role at Ludwigshafen's Festival of German Film

 

Steven Heller, author of The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?, in conversation with kultur360 co-editor James Skidmore.

 

Germany’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars is not the heavy historical drama North American audiences have come to expect.

 

A docudrama navigates the gay community of 1950s Zurich.

 

Maggie Peren's film "Colour of the Ocean" questions some basic beliefs about refugees.

 

Paul Roorda is a Canadian artist who spends part of each year in Berlin.

 

Germany's entry for the foreign language Oscar is a largely conventional German historical film

 

Coming to terms with the past - the German colonial past, that is.

 

Exit Deutschland helps neo-Nazis leave the far right scene and return to mainstream German society.

 

ProAsyl calls the reform “an extensive system of imprisonment."

 

The drama, featuring “the most handsome lovers of the Berlinale,” explores the difficulty of existing outside of heteronormative and socially prescribed life plans in present-day Germany.

 

German law requires that the children of migrants and refugees attend school. What impact will this influx of children have on the school system, and on the German language itself?

 

The Spinnerei is a nineteenth-century cotton mill repurposed as an arts and cultural centre.

 

Why is this children's detective series so popular?

 

The Goethe-Institut Toronto's program curator talks about her interest in contemporary German cinema.

 

Budding romance gives way to a gritty gangster story. And it's all shot in a single 140-minute take.

 

In a wide-ranging interview, filmmaker Marc Bauder discusses memory culture in Germany and his work on the Lichtgrenze.

 

Recent Extras

Victoria is still making waves

Sebastian Schipper's one-take film Victoria is still generating interest.

They paved paradise . . . and put up housing

Munich is building affordable housing atop parking lots Like many other cities, Munich is faced with less and less space, but more and more people. It has to find a way to develop new housing in an urban area that has a finite – and dwindling – amount of space available. One proposal, reported...

Questioning Germany’s “moral authority”

Germany's behaviour during Greek financial crisis comes back to haunt it

Ai Weiwei makes a statement

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei makes an artistic statement on the European refugee crisis

Angie conquers Time

Angela Merkel has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2015.

Some downsides to being green

Is Germany's Energiewende becoming too expensive?

Angela Merkel: Ten Years as Chancellor

Angela Merkel has been in office for 10 years: media gushing can't be stopped.

"It was obvious that [Nadoo] is a person who polarizes, but the vehemence of the reactions surprised us. We have misjudged the issue."

Passau, the Lampedusa of Germany

A German border city embodies the tensions seen throughout Germany as the country comes to terms with the refugee crisis.

Berlin’s Manhattan

A photo essay about the tenants of a crumbling apartment building near Berlin

Austria ponders erecting a fence

It's not a fence, it's "special construction measures."

From “willkommen” to “raus”?

Has the German Willkommenskultur given way to something more sinister?

Disobeying the Ampelmann

Can Germans overcome their respect for regulations and cross against a red light?

Jürgen Habermas on philosophy’s mission

According to Jürgen Habermas, "the increasingly high-pitched appeal by politicians to 'our values' sounds ever emptier."

Migration dominates Swiss parliamentary elections

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