Ethiopia Rising
Join us for an evening of sharing Ingrid’s life story and adventure in the Horn of Africa. She will take us through her journey to build a school in Southern Ethiopia through the organization Imagine1day, a growing global community of people making passionate contributions toward ensuring that all Ethiopians have access to quality education funded free of foreign aid by 2030.
Berlin and I: Vom Mauerblümchen zur Weltstadtpflanze | From Wallflower to Metropolitan Plant
“Manchmal bleibt eine/r am selben Ort sitzen, und die ganze Welt um eine/n herum verändert sich. Bleibe ich unberührt oder ändere ich mich mit?”
“Sometimes one remains immobile in a place and sees the world around one changing. Do I remain unchanged or do I change, too? How does that happen? Do I take an active part in this change?”
My German Mother’s Story
Born in Guangzhou (Canton), China, Dr. Alex Feng is the son of Elizabeth Bruckman and Wei Ren Feng. His parents met in Berlin when his father was studying for his doctorate in International Law and then changed to Philosophy.
Elizabeth was the oldest of two daughters and met Wei Ren after she earned a degree in business administration and was working. The unique relationship between this German woman and a Chinese man in the 1940s created a nurturing and provocative environment for their son.
Dr. Feng talks about the life and accomplishments of his Mother and shares his perspective on this interesting couple and family.
Invisible Life
Ayten Mutlu Saray is a filmmaker and anthropologist from Switzerland. She is working on issues of the right to exist in different societies with a personal aesthetic claim to art. Her work is not about telling stories but creating a specific state of mind, in which biographies of displaced people develop. It is not about fighting something but pursuing the possibilities of different forms of being and questioning power in a permanent process.
Building a Civil Society in San Francisco: the German Contribution, 1850 to World War I
German speakers were the second largest ethnic group to make their home in San Francisco and the Bay Area beginning with the Gold Rush. They came from separate political entities that became, in 1871, part of a united Germany. A number of these early German arrivals had left Germany as a result of the failed revolution of 1848. They saw no future for themselves in Germany after the failure of the democratic movement. They tended to be highly educated professionals who brought their expertise and considerable leadership skills to their new country. Some of these immigrants became highly respected leaders of the German community in the city in which they made a new home. Who were those early German-speaking arrivals and what did they contribute to the emerging city by the Bay? How did they make a living in the early chaotic and often lawless city? It is a compelling story that took a dramatic turn with the start of World War I.
Made in Germany
Annegret Ogden experienced VE-Day as a child in Germany. At the University in Munich, she met her American husband, a fellow student, and accompanied him to Berkeley, CA. Now retired from her work as a librarian at the University of California, she has written for The Californians, and is the author of The Great American Housewife. She was a founder of The Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society and her stories have appeared in their three books: Ladies’ Own Erotica; Look Homeward, Erotica; and, Sex, Death and Other Distractions.
Bridge Markland
Bridge Markland, an acclaimed performer from Berlin (*1961 in Berlin - West), is a virtuosa/o of role-play and transformation. She is an artist who effortlessly crosses all boundaries between sub- and high-culture, dance, theatre, cabaret, performance, puppetry, and erotic art. Her specialty is transgender performances in which the audience can experience the change from woman to man (or vice versa). She is a pioneer of drag and gender performance in Germany and has organized Drag King events, tours, and festivals from 1994 - 2002.
Daheim Unterwegs: Ein deutsches Leben
Ika Hügel-Marshall was born in Germany in 1947 to a white German mother and an African-American father. Initially, she grew up with her mother, but from her sixth to her fifteenth year of life she was raised—as many Afro-German children of her generation—in a children's home. Only at the age of 39 did she meet other Afro-Germans and was then involved in setting up the “Initiative of Black Germans” (ISD). In 1993, she found her father in Chicago and met him and his family—a most profound experience.
In 1996, Ika Hügel-Marshall received the Audre Lorde Literary Award for the completion of Invisible Woman. She has given numerous readings in Germany, Austria, and the USA.
Romani Artist Ceija Stojka
Many people don’t know very much about the Roma (aka “Gypsies”), who are Europe’s largest minority and have been living in different European countries for hundreds of years yet have not been treated as equal citizens. Although they had to suffer from Nazi persecution, like Jews and other targeted groups, the story of the Romani Holocaust remains largely untold. Only in the recent past have individual Roma come forward to share their history and culture with the non-Roma—as an attempt to undo harmful stereotypes and make themselves more understood by the majority culture.
Peace on Cancer: An ecological paradigm for a better understanding and treatment of cancer
Dr. Bachmann received his M.D. from the J. Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and his doctorate in virology from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He is currently working as a research scientist at Stanford University on the molecular genetics of tumor immune escape and transplant tolerance.
Chances are that you and your loved ones have been touched by cancer during the last five decades that the "War on Cancer" has been going on for. Still, mortality rates have changed only insignificantly for the majority of cancer types while incidence rates for a number of cancers have continued to grow. In fact, cancer is, and has been for a long time, the second most common cause of death in the developed world after cardiovascular disease. One in two men and one in three women born after 1985 will suffer cancer in their lifetime, from which one in six will die.