Maria Stehle | University of Tennessee Knoxville (original) (raw)

Papers by Maria Stehle

Germany in the Loud Twentieth CenturyAn Introduction, 2011

This chapter traces depictions of city spaces in German rap and hip-hop productions that mirror c... more This chapter traces depictions of city spaces in German rap and hip-hop productions that mirror conflicting experiences of space and belonging in the 21st century. The different layers of urban space depicted in rap and hip-hop music, their sounds, voices, noises, and music (re)claim and (re)define space and ownership. Examples range from commercial rap that uses sexist, violent, and in some cases nationalist imagery to hip-hop as an attempt to encourage a global culture of antiracist activism. The conflicting national and transnational identifications that become visible and audible in these discussions, mirror cultural anxieties over changing notions of belonging in a globalized and mediated world.

Social Justice and the University

Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, Mar 1, 2022

German Women's Writing in the Twenty-First Century, 2015

Modern Language Review, 2015

Review of Maria Stehle. Ghetto Voices in Contemporary German Culture: Textscapes, Filmscapes, Sou... more Review of Maria Stehle. Ghetto Voices in Contemporary German Culture: Textscapes, Filmscapes, Soundscapes. Rochester: Camden House, 2012. 205 pp.

Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 2010

This article investigates the potential of one of the most contested and debated spaces of German... more This article investigates the potential of one of the most contested and debated spaces of German Studies research, the Postdamer Platz in Berlin, as an interactive "textbook." By employing the notion of "play" the areas around the commercialized Postdamer Platz can be "read" and explored as contradictory, chaotic, messy, and haunted by ghosts of the past, despite—or possibly amplified by—the newly constructed, glossy surfaces of global media and capitalism that form a center for the German capital. I consider the subversive possibilities as well as the limits of this playful approach to teaching, exploring, and learning about commercialized urban centers in the twenty-first century.

Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 2010

Journal of Popular Music Studies, 2013

Feminist Media Studies, 2017

no longer on reality television? That remains to be seen. But we also should not have to wait for... more no longer on reality television? That remains to be seen. But we also should not have to wait for people to ascend to what may be perceived to more legitimate social spaces before we pay attention to them and value what they say. If we give so-called low-brow popular culture such as reality television and social media the same consideration that we do more widely accepted genres in pop culture we might find the value in the representations and the feminist work that is happening across all forms of media.

Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 2018

In this essay, we develop the concept of awkward assemblages to describe feminist digital activis... more In this essay, we develop the concept of awkward assemblages to describe feminist digital activism that is multidirectional in its political effects and interpretive legibility, built of uneasy bedfellows and ill-suited coalitional partners. We exemplify the way in which activist practices, developing out of the tensions in which contemporary feminisms find themselves, complicate the genealogy of feminist protest. We focus on feminist responses triggered by the sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve 2015/16, particularly the work of Swiss-German performance artist Milo Moiré. This example allows us to highlight the complex ways in which local and contemporary feminist interventions intersect with the history of feminist protest art and how they link to transnational movements—among other examples, the #MeToo movement. We then turn to digital-feminist coalitional possibilities by thinking through assembling, along with coding and hacking, as performative labor that em...

Critical Studies in Media and Communication, 2020

Feminist German Studies, 2020

Abstract:In this essay we seek to both discuss and exemplify the transformation from collaborativ... more Abstract:In this essay we seek to both discuss and exemplify the transformation from collaborative work and dialogue to collective thinking and action. We offer a manifesto for building feminist coalitions at a historic moment when these appear to face growing obstacles. We argue that it remains as urgent as ever for those who are in a position to do so to forge networks and to build spaces for action. Ultimately, we call for the political potential of polyvocal and polyamorous collaborations that reach across disciplines, time zones, and borders and that take the flexible and creative shape of gatherings.

Journal of European Popular Culture, 2019

This article analyses a selection of pop music videos released between 2012 and 2014 that rescrip... more This article analyses a selection of pop music videos released between 2012 and 2014 that rescript Berlin’s Zeitlichkeit (temporality), the relationship between city spaces, history, and time. Examples include videos by German and non-German artists, ranging from David Bowie to Miss Platnum, Lilly Wood & the Prick, Alanis Morissette and Andreas Bourani. Striking synergies between the different sound-image-texts emerge around questions of historic memory, time, and time passing. Close analyses show how these Berlin music videos released between 2012 and 2014 challenge linear narratives of pasts and progress. In the non-linear conceptions of time suggested in these videos and songs, new and old agents can coexist and create images and narratives of a different temporal tapestry of the city.

Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 2018

Abstract:Three German documentary films released before the height of the arrival of mainly Syria... more Abstract:Three German documentary films released before the height of the arrival of mainly Syrian refugees in 2015/16 document the precarious lives of refugees in Germany and highlight the complex politics that underlie Germany's Willkommenskultur. Can't Be Silent follows the tour of musician Heinz Ratz, who performs with artists he met in refugee camps across Germany; Land in Sicht documents the journeys of three refugees applying for asylum in Germany; and Willkommen auf Deutsch illustrates the struggles of a rural district politician, of the inhabitants of a small town, and of selected refugee families as an increasing number of refugees are assigned to the area. A close reading of the films uncovers the tensions between depictions of precarity and Heimatlosigkeit on the one hand and a sense of defiant agency expressed by the refugee characters on the other hand. This insistence on maintaining a sense of sovereignty over their movements, on forming communities, and on staying in Germany offers glimpses into formations of global cohabitation that question racialized notions of national belonging.

German Politics and Society, 2017

This article offers a theorization of the politics of politically inspired musical performances i... more This article offers a theorization of the politics of politically inspired musical performances in the twenty-first century. The two examples, Peaches’ “Dick in the Air” and Rose McGowan’s “RM486,” both released in fall 2015, offer two very different approaches to contemporary feminist and popfeminist body politics. These songs with their accompanying video and multimedia releases, offer the temporal and auditory frame for reflections about how gendered and racialized bodies are impacted by their surroundings and how, in turn, we impact these surroundings, to the local and the global, to neoliberalism and its discontents. These performances are not acts of provocation, but suggest ways to imagine social futures by creating spaces for relations, shared response, and political intervention.

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 2016

This collaborative essay considers the way feminist activism takes shape in the context of time-b... more This collaborative essay considers the way feminist activism takes shape in the context of time-based feminist performance art. We argue that the formal and aesthetic interventions into digital culture of Noah Sow, Chicks on Speed, and Hito Steyerl articulate political resistance within feminist impasses and neoliberal circularities. Our analysis focuses on how these artists engage digital platforms to make visible otherwise imperceptible aspects of the present, including consumerism, wellness, imperial warfare as crisis ordinariness, and modes of digital hypervisibility, perception, and representation. Not only do these works uncover, grapple with, and potentially dissolve the bind of feminism, but they also work against the imperceptibility of neoliberalism as second nature or common sense. In the form of this essay (with comment bubbles and hyperlinks), we highlight our process of thinking about these works and expose the collaborative process of feminist academic writing in the digital age as yet another form of searching for spaces of political resistance and solidarity. Should be viewed with current versions of Firefox, Safari, or Adobe PDF viewer/reader.

Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture, 2005

I thank the organizers and the presenters of the panel on Transnational Feminism at the Women in ... more I thank the organizers and the presenters of the panel on Transnational Feminism at the Women in German Conference 2004, and the coeditors of the Women in German Yearbook. My special thanks to my dissertation group, Chizu Sato, Kirsten Isgro, and Beverly Weber, and to ...