Jana Maria Weiss (Germany)

During my time as an Ertegun Scholar I worked on different projects exploring migration, multilingualism and encounters with the ‚Other’ in German literature. Under the supervision of Prof. Karen Leeder I developed a self-devised special subject, which allowed me to examine representations of Islam in German poetry from Goethe’s ‘West-Eastern Divan’ to contemporary post-migrant literature. My master’s dissertation focused on the poetics of Third Space in the multilingual poetry of Zafer Şenocak and Yoko Tawada. Moreover, my interest in constructions of otherness in literature and culture drew me to explore the relation between language, affect and violence.

Thanks to the outstanding support of the Ertegun programme, throughout the year I was able to take my research into the public sphere in various ways: volunteering for the outreach programme „Transnationalizing Faith“ I hosted the exhibition „Following Islam through German History“ at Ertegun House and helped to run a workshop on cultural identity at the Tate Modern in London. Together with fellow Ertegun scholar Chiara Giovanni I also organised an interdisciplinary roundtable on ‚Narratives of migration’ at Ertegun House. In addition to these events, I acted as ambassador for the Oxford German Network and wrote a series of articles on literary images of Berlin.

Being an Ertegun Scholar was a defining experience for me, intellectually and personally: the weekly seminars as well as the informal exchange of ideas in the shared office and the Ertegun kitchen taught me to think in new directions and to take my work across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. I will always be immensely grateful to Mica and Ahmet Ertegun for the opportunity to be part of this unique scholarly community.