Katharina Karcher | University of Birmingham (original) (raw)
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Papers by Katharina Karcher
Routledge eBooks, May 2, 2023
Introduction: European urban (counter)terrorism posthumanised Since 2004, public spaces in Europe... more Introduction: European urban (counter)terrorism posthumanised Since 2004, public spaces in European cities have been hit by more than 10 major terrorist attacks, killing hundreds of people; injuring thousands; causing lingering trauma, grief, and mourning; and generating a variety of commemoration practices and memorials. Whilst trying to come to terms with recent acts of urban terrorism, governments, security agencies, and local communities are bracing themselves for further attacks-now seemingly written into our daily neoliberal risk-managed lives and urban environments as to-be-expected-as well as even harsher counterterrorist interventions and potential political recuperations. What is noticeable in 2022 is that more and more of these terrorist attacks, including the counterterrorism measures and infrastructural tools that precede and follow such violent events, involve hitherto underspotlighted more-than-human phenomena. When everyday objects, such as vans and kitchen knives, are transformed into weapons of terrorist violence and metal gates and concrete boulders suddenly appear in urban environments, they, as phenomena, (re)configure social, physical, and imaginary spaces in more-than-human ways. To gain a better understanding of these intricate (re)configurations and (re)materialisations, the multi-layered impact of (counter)terrorist events must be examined in tandem with the intra-actions between human and more-than-human agential phenomena, including the urban spaces that they are embedded in and co-constituted by. CTS, we argue, is therefore in need of a critical theoretical intervention that makes space for such a holistic critical posthumanist analysis. 2 Such an analysis builds on-but also moves beyond-said discipline (
Feminist Review, Jul 1, 2014
Berghahn Books, Oct 17, 2022
German Division as Shared Experience
Renowned neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks is a visiting professor at the University of Warw... more Renowned neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks is a visiting professor at the University of Warwick as part of the Institute of Advanced Study. Dr Sacks was born in London. He earned his medical degree at the University of Oxford (Queen’s College) and the Middlesex Hospital (now UCL), followed by residencies and fellowships at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). As well as authoring best-selling books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, he is clinical professor of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Warwick is part of a consortium led by New York University which is building an applied science research institute, the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Dr Sacks recently completed a five-year residency at Columbia University in New York, where he was professor of neurology and psychiatry. He also held the title of Columbia University Artist, in recognition of his contributions to the arts as well as to medicine. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Association of British Neurologists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU for more than 25 years. In 2008, he was appointed CBE.
Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013
German Division as Shared Experience
There are a number of difficulties encountered when teaching the history of Germany’s ‘1968,’ the... more There are a number of difficulties encountered when teaching the history of Germany’s ‘1968,’ the first of which is suggested by the single quotation marks placed around the date in our title. Of course, the protest movements of the 1960s cannot be understood with reference to one year alone, or even to only one country. Our chapter will explore ways to teach Germany’s ‘1968’ as a global phenomenon, and one in which a number of previously overlooked groups (e.g. women in particular) were significantly involved, in order to demonstrate the multifaceted nature and effects of the 1960s protest movement from new and broader perspectives. Activists in the so-called ‘anti-authoritarian’ wing of the student movement in West Germany and West Berlin rejected the traditional power structures and called for a global revolution. Now that fifty years have passed since 1968, further difficult questions about what the so-called ‘revolution’ of the 1960s achieved are more pressing than ever. It is ...
Modern Language Review, 2017
Third Wave Feminism, 2007
Feminist Media Studies, 2015
The Red Zora was formed in the mid-1970s as a subgroup within the militant leftist network Revolu... more The Red Zora was formed in the mid-1970s as a subgroup within the militant leftist network Revolutionary Cells. Like other militant leftist groups in West Germany, the Red Zora deemed the use of physical force against property, and in some cases people, to be a necessary part of national and international political interventions. But the group had a radical feminist philosophy. Between 1977 and 1995, the Red Zora carried out dozens of attacks with an explicitly feminist agenda. This paper gives a brief overview of the activities of the Red Zora and of feminist responses to the group. Against the background of Germany's fascist past and political violence in the FRG, feminist activists in Germany were understandably reluctant to discuss ideas and activities that could associate the women's movement with left-wing "terrorism". This article shows that "Hollaback!", #aufschrei and other recent campaigns by feminist activists in Germany have reinforced rather than challenged the feminist silence on the Red Zora. While German feminists have only begun to document the history of the group, activists in other countries show that one does not have to agree with the tactics of the Red Zora to productively engage with the activities of this group.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2010
Contemporary European History, 2022
Initially admitted to the United Kingdom on a short-term visa, the disabled German student activi... more Initially admitted to the United Kingdom on a short-term visa, the disabled German student activist Rudi Dutschke applied for a student visa in the United Kingdom in 1970. His application was rejected on grounds of national security. Dutschke was one of the first aliens who made use of his right to appeal, but the closed material procedure applied in his case meant that critical evidence remained undisclosed. Far from being ‘simply a historical curiosity’, the Dutschke case powerfully illustrates how two social dynamics at the centre of the moral panic in the late 1960s – immigration and student protest – were linked and framed as a threat to the nation.
German Politics and Society, 2015
Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 2016
This dissertation offers a qualitative study of female participation in leftist political violenc... more This dissertation offers a qualitative study of female participation in leftist political violence in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970. It focuses on four militant leftist groups: the ‘Red Army Faction’ (RAF), the ‘Movement of June 2’ (MJ2), the ‘Revolutionary Cells’ (RC), and the ‘Red Zora’ (RZ). Unlike the RAF, the MJ2 has attracted little attention by scholars and journalists; and there is virtually no literature on the RC and the RZ. To offer a nuanced analysis of the history, ideologies and activities of the four groups, this thesis draws on semi-structured interviews with former group members and contemporary witnesses, autobiographical accounts, scholarly literature, newspaper articles, and a range of archival sources. The guiding questions for the analysis are: what roles have women played in the four organisations and in concrete manifestations of political violence? And, to what extent could female participation in political violence be understood as a form of fe...
Routledge eBooks, May 2, 2023
Introduction: European urban (counter)terrorism posthumanised Since 2004, public spaces in Europe... more Introduction: European urban (counter)terrorism posthumanised Since 2004, public spaces in European cities have been hit by more than 10 major terrorist attacks, killing hundreds of people; injuring thousands; causing lingering trauma, grief, and mourning; and generating a variety of commemoration practices and memorials. Whilst trying to come to terms with recent acts of urban terrorism, governments, security agencies, and local communities are bracing themselves for further attacks-now seemingly written into our daily neoliberal risk-managed lives and urban environments as to-be-expected-as well as even harsher counterterrorist interventions and potential political recuperations. What is noticeable in 2022 is that more and more of these terrorist attacks, including the counterterrorism measures and infrastructural tools that precede and follow such violent events, involve hitherto underspotlighted more-than-human phenomena. When everyday objects, such as vans and kitchen knives, are transformed into weapons of terrorist violence and metal gates and concrete boulders suddenly appear in urban environments, they, as phenomena, (re)configure social, physical, and imaginary spaces in more-than-human ways. To gain a better understanding of these intricate (re)configurations and (re)materialisations, the multi-layered impact of (counter)terrorist events must be examined in tandem with the intra-actions between human and more-than-human agential phenomena, including the urban spaces that they are embedded in and co-constituted by. CTS, we argue, is therefore in need of a critical theoretical intervention that makes space for such a holistic critical posthumanist analysis. 2 Such an analysis builds on-but also moves beyond-said discipline (
Feminist Review, Jul 1, 2014
Berghahn Books, Oct 17, 2022
German Division as Shared Experience
Renowned neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks is a visiting professor at the University of Warw... more Renowned neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks is a visiting professor at the University of Warwick as part of the Institute of Advanced Study. Dr Sacks was born in London. He earned his medical degree at the University of Oxford (Queen’s College) and the Middlesex Hospital (now UCL), followed by residencies and fellowships at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). As well as authoring best-selling books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, he is clinical professor of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Warwick is part of a consortium led by New York University which is building an applied science research institute, the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Dr Sacks recently completed a five-year residency at Columbia University in New York, where he was professor of neurology and psychiatry. He also held the title of Columbia University Artist, in recognition of his contributions to the arts as well as to medicine. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Association of British Neurologists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU for more than 25 years. In 2008, he was appointed CBE.
Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013
German Division as Shared Experience
There are a number of difficulties encountered when teaching the history of Germany’s ‘1968,’ the... more There are a number of difficulties encountered when teaching the history of Germany’s ‘1968,’ the first of which is suggested by the single quotation marks placed around the date in our title. Of course, the protest movements of the 1960s cannot be understood with reference to one year alone, or even to only one country. Our chapter will explore ways to teach Germany’s ‘1968’ as a global phenomenon, and one in which a number of previously overlooked groups (e.g. women in particular) were significantly involved, in order to demonstrate the multifaceted nature and effects of the 1960s protest movement from new and broader perspectives. Activists in the so-called ‘anti-authoritarian’ wing of the student movement in West Germany and West Berlin rejected the traditional power structures and called for a global revolution. Now that fifty years have passed since 1968, further difficult questions about what the so-called ‘revolution’ of the 1960s achieved are more pressing than ever. It is ...
Modern Language Review, 2017
Third Wave Feminism, 2007
Feminist Media Studies, 2015
The Red Zora was formed in the mid-1970s as a subgroup within the militant leftist network Revolu... more The Red Zora was formed in the mid-1970s as a subgroup within the militant leftist network Revolutionary Cells. Like other militant leftist groups in West Germany, the Red Zora deemed the use of physical force against property, and in some cases people, to be a necessary part of national and international political interventions. But the group had a radical feminist philosophy. Between 1977 and 1995, the Red Zora carried out dozens of attacks with an explicitly feminist agenda. This paper gives a brief overview of the activities of the Red Zora and of feminist responses to the group. Against the background of Germany's fascist past and political violence in the FRG, feminist activists in Germany were understandably reluctant to discuss ideas and activities that could associate the women's movement with left-wing "terrorism". This article shows that "Hollaback!", #aufschrei and other recent campaigns by feminist activists in Germany have reinforced rather than challenged the feminist silence on the Red Zora. While German feminists have only begun to document the history of the group, activists in other countries show that one does not have to agree with the tactics of the Red Zora to productively engage with the activities of this group.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2010
Contemporary European History, 2022
Initially admitted to the United Kingdom on a short-term visa, the disabled German student activi... more Initially admitted to the United Kingdom on a short-term visa, the disabled German student activist Rudi Dutschke applied for a student visa in the United Kingdom in 1970. His application was rejected on grounds of national security. Dutschke was one of the first aliens who made use of his right to appeal, but the closed material procedure applied in his case meant that critical evidence remained undisclosed. Far from being ‘simply a historical curiosity’, the Dutschke case powerfully illustrates how two social dynamics at the centre of the moral panic in the late 1960s – immigration and student protest – were linked and framed as a threat to the nation.
German Politics and Society, 2015
Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 2016
This dissertation offers a qualitative study of female participation in leftist political violenc... more This dissertation offers a qualitative study of female participation in leftist political violence in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970. It focuses on four militant leftist groups: the ‘Red Army Faction’ (RAF), the ‘Movement of June 2’ (MJ2), the ‘Revolutionary Cells’ (RC), and the ‘Red Zora’ (RZ). Unlike the RAF, the MJ2 has attracted little attention by scholars and journalists; and there is virtually no literature on the RC and the RZ. To offer a nuanced analysis of the history, ideologies and activities of the four groups, this thesis draws on semi-structured interviews with former group members and contemporary witnesses, autobiographical accounts, scholarly literature, newspaper articles, and a range of archival sources. The guiding questions for the analysis are: what roles have women played in the four organisations and in concrete manifestations of political violence? And, to what extent could female participation in political violence be understood as a form of fe...