Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mathilde Montpetit @mathildegm.bsky.social · 3d

This morning, The Berliner began – against the will of its staff – posting a series of advertisements for the Nova Festival Exhibition. Our concerns having been dismissed and stonewalled, we have had no choice but to strike.

The decision of The Berliner magazine to run an ad campaign for the Nova Festival Exhibition was taken against the explicit objections of its editorial staff and regular freelance contributors.

As we expressed in a letter to management, we freelancers consider these ads clear evidence of ownership taking a political stance on Gaza, having for months pressured the magazine to suppress editorial coverage of Palestine.

As such, we have no other choice but to protest the campaign by withdrawing our collective labour for the magazine's next issue.
We demand that The Berliner withdraw the ads. If the ads continue, our protest will continue.

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Mathilde Montpetit @mathildegm.bsky.social · Sep 3

The amazing Cristina Rivera Garza is serving as guest curator at the ILB this year – had an amazing time talking to her about the events she organized and what multilingual literature can offer us in these horrible times:

Cristina Rivera Garza on what to expect from the ILB 2025 - The Berliner

The Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin (ILB) is the highlight of the literary calendar. We spoke with author-curator Cristina Rivera Garza about what to expect.

www.the-berliner.com

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · Jun 27

I had a great time picking 12 short stories and writing about them for Jonathan Gibbs’ great project, A Personal Anthology. You can read about them - and browse the archives of past writers’ choices - here:

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · Jun 27

And off it goes, Gabriel Flynn’s Personal Anthology, bag on its arm, slung like a shield, having lost its job as a night watchman in a Barcelona campsite, roaming the shop floor in quadrants, resisting the urge to let satire ring through its voice, finding itself in the last chamber already…

A Personal Anthology, by Gabriel Flynn

I selected the twelve stories in this anthology with the following test in mind: if I were to arrive at a secluded holiday rental and discover I had left my bag of books on the bus from the nearest to...

apersonalanthology.substack.com

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · Jun 24

London pals, on July 7th I’m going to be talking about Poor Ghost! with the brilliant @nrolah.bsky.social at Reference Point bookshop, WC2R. Come and join if you’re free!

Poor Ghost!

conversation x book signing

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · May 22

My debut novel, Poor Ghost! is out today with @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

It’s about class, mourning, love, fathers, Manchester, and lots of other stuff.

I’m proud of it and I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

A handsome looking novel called Poor Ghost! with endorsements from Claire Messud, Lara Williams, Wendy Erskine, Tim MacGabhann, Julianne Pachico, and Aidan Cottrell-Boyce

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Apr 30

FULL LINEUP for our little festival of Australian and Aoteoroa/New Zealand literature in Berlin on May 24th!! Come see professors, poets, artists, & novelists (& me); come hear about Weiss & Bismarck's bastards & Sebald in the desert & multidirectional war memory >>

stadtsprachen.de/en/event/par...

PARATAXE Symposium XVI = Antipodes: Down under in Berlin – the Australian & New Zealand authors of Berlin

Draft program: 13:30: Kick-offWith Alexander Wells and Martin Jankowski 14:00 – 15:30: Panel 1 (in German)NEIGHBOURS. Encounters, translations, suggestions.Keynote: Prof. Anja SchwarzPanel: Joel Scott...

stadtsprachen.de

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Apr 11

in this month's Berliner mag, I waded in to the "brodernism" debate—and called time on the genre of anglophone literary criticism that was designed to go viral on Twitter >>

www.the-berliner.com/books/broder...

In search of “Brodernism”: Where is this maximalist cult of difficulty? - The Berliner

It's possible to read literature in translation and not fetishise it – we do it all the time.

www.the-berliner.com

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Mathilde Montpetit @mathildegm.bsky.social · Apr 8

A pleasure as always to spend some time with Seagull Books' stable of world-bending fiction:

Thomas Mann’s Overcoat: Surreal, speculative, bizarre - The Berliner

Ugly coats, invisible elephants and giant monuments having sex with the clouds: Istvan Vörös' new novel manages to outdo the subconscious.

www.the-berliner.com

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Apr 7

in my urgent, whipsmart, unputdownable column in last month's Berliner, which has been described by both Zadie Smith and Ocean Vuong as "necessary", I call for an end to the book blurb—because it's ugly & stupid & skews the industry towards the well-connected >>

www.the-berliner.com/books/editor...

Blurb your enthusiasm: The case for abolishing the book blurb - The Berliner

"Some of the worst-written pieces of English on the planet". Our resident book critic wants the book blurb gone once and for all.

www.the-berliner.com

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MAA Graduate Student Committee @gsc-maa.bsky.social · Mar 25

🤙 Call for Proposals! Seeking topics like professionalization 💼 community building 👥 skills training 🔬 etc. If your proposal addresses the medievalist grad student experience, then we want to sponsor you! First round consideration due May 22nd ⏳ #MAA2026 #ICMS #IMC

MAA's GSC invites you to propose a session! The GSC seeks to platform topics of interest and importance to medievalist graduate students. Is there something you want to see at conferences next year? We want to sponsor you! Now accepting proposals for MAA 2026, ICMS 2026, IMC 2026; 1st Deadline: 22 May 2025; Send your proposals to gsc@themedievalacademy.org

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Mar 25

Viktor Orbán's Hungary: scourge of the EU, role model for the US right. For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about how the Orbán regime seeks legitimacy by telling dodgy stories about the 20th century—stories not all so different from those that we've been telling in the West

thebaffler.com/salvos/house...

House of the Rising Hun | Alexander Wells

In Budapest, the House of Terror museum is a physical embodiment of Viktor Orbán’s ambition to rewrite Hungary’s national myths along authoritarian lines.

thebaffler.com

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · Mar 18

Berliners, my novel is coming out in two months and I'm throwing a launch party at @lettretage.de with my great pal @ajbwells.bsky.social. Come along!

A poster: Poor Ghost! Book launch. Readings, discussion, and Q&A with Gabriel Flynn and Alex Wells. Wednesday 21st May, 20:00 @ Lettrétage, Veteranenstraße 21, Berlin-Mitte. Free entry. Books and drinks for sale.

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Feb 19

proud to see The Berliner – and specifically @mathildegm.bsky.social – at the top of the critical praise for Peter Cornell's WAYS OF PARADISE .... sucked in Josh Cohen!! (also buy this book it's amazing)

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Sanders Isaac Bernstein @return2sanders.bsky.social · Feb 18

I first saw The Klezmer Project, a beautiful film that plays with fiction, history, text & image, urging us to consider culture beyond blood and nation, at Berlinale 2023. @jewishcurrents.bsky.social let me write about it. Thank you, Nathan & Nora, for supporting and editing this labor of years.

Jewish Currents @jewishcurrents.bsky.social · Feb 18

The film The Klezmer Project, writes Sanders Isaac Bernstein, suggests a new ethic of diasporism—rejecting both the violence of Zionism and the sentimental dream of recovering a Yiddish past.

Now online from our Fall/Winter 2024 issue:

Sonic Bloom

The film The Klezmer Project suggests a new ethic of diasporism—rejecting both the violence of Zionism and the sentimental dream of recovering a Yiddish…

jewishcurrents.org

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · Feb 18

Berliners: my football club is starting a women’s team and we’re looking for players. Please share if you know anyone who might want to join a fun, inclusive women’s football team with professional coaches.

Women players wanted for Falco Frauen 2025/2026, enquiries to vorstand@falco.de. Trans and non-binary players are welcome and encouraged.

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Feb 14

"One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow..."

My wintry The Berliner column about snow in literature at a time we're getting lots less of it—from Stevens and Stifter to Stepanova and Amy Waldman >>>

www.the-berliner.com/books/what-d...

A mind of winter: What does snow mean - and what will happen when it disappears? - The Berliner

Photo: IMAGO / Schöning One must have a mind of winter / To regard the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees crusted with snow, wrote Wallace Stevens,

www.the-berliner.com

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Mathilde Montpetit @mathildegm.bsky.social · Feb 13

It was an honor to review Omar Khalifa's SAND-CATCHER, out now from @coffeehousepress.bsky.social, for the Berliner this month. Whether about the Nakba to the current genocide, we demand so much of Palestinians' memories and grief:

Sand-Catcher: Palestinian resistance and the pain of remembrance - The Berliner

Omar Khalifah's latest novel, Sand-Catcher, is concerned with memory, victimhood, and who is able to determine how we speak about a traumatic past.

www.the-berliner.com

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Sanders Isaac Bernstein @return2sanders.bsky.social · Jan 29

As @ajbwells.bsky.social has been saying (and Michel Friedman, a former CDU rep, for what it’s worth), the greatest threat to german democracy is the CDU burning the brandmauer and collaborating with the AfD…god these quotes are alarming.

Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · Jan 29

A named CDU official: “People have had enough of Nazi-bashing the AfD and talk about firewalls.” An unnamed one: “We’re not going to let some shitty court, or European law, or the Geneva conventions tell us what to do.”

Maximilian Pichl @maxpichl.bsky.social · Jan 29

"Scheiss-Gerichte" - so reden CDUler jetzt über den Rechtsstaat. Es geht um viel mehr als die Migration. Das sollte allen klar sein.

www.zeit.de/2025/05/asyl...

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MAA Graduate Student Committee @gsc-maa.bsky.social · Jan 27

✒️📓Join us for "Writing Against the Clock: Nurturing Your Creativity in the Academic World" In Pt 1 we welcome @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social , @bruceholsinger.bsky.social , Julia Istomnia, & Helen Sword. In Pt 2, we write together 😎Register now! 🔗1: bit.ly/MAAGSCWrite1 🔗2: bit.ly/MAAGSCWrite2

A Virtual Workshop offered by the MAA’s GSC: "Writing Against the Clock: Nurturing Your Creativity in the Academic World" Guest experts: Irina Dumitrescu, Bruce Holsinger, Julia Istomnia, Helen Sword. With this webinar and companion workshop, the GSC aims to get our graduate student community writing quickly, often, and efficiently, all while prioritizing the fun of it all. Dissertation completion grants and research fellowships are sadly too few and far between; most of us will not find ourselves with uninterrupted time to write without other responsibilities like teaching, service, and other personal and professional obligations pulling us away. How can we make the most of the precious time we have to do the work we love and do it well? How can we overcome the obstacles to writing that come with writing in the real world? How do some academics strike the right balance and seem to write nonstop?
In part one of this event (Feb 10th), our guest speakers — all prolific writers of academic books and articles as well as works of creative fiction — will share reflections on the writing process and will answer your burning questions. Then, in part two (Feb 18th), we’ll put the advice of the experts into practice with an open writing hour, guided by Camila Marcone. Part 1: 10 February 2025 2-3PM EST Part 2: 18 February 2025 2-3PM EST Register To attend Each Part

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Jan 27

CDU breaking the taboo on coalitioning with the far right remains the greatest threat to German democracy. But you wouldn't know that from the anglophone papers

Tini Tarabiscoté*e / Christina Dongowski @tinido.bsky.social · Jan 27

AfD is polling at around 20% in all the relevant German polls, CDU is at 30%, SPD at 15%, Grüne (Greens) at 15%. FDP, BSW and Die Linke are hovering around the 5% threshhold. (Polls haven't really moved since about half a year at least.)

www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/

Alison @alisonfullerton.bsky.social · Jan 27

As economies suffer, ideologies lean right. The AfD party in Germany is now polling in the lead.

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Mathilde Montpetit @mathildegm.bsky.social · Jan 22

It was a real pleasure to round out 2024, the Year of Surrealism, with Saskia Vogel's new translation of Peter Cornell's THE WAYS OF PARADISE, out now from @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social:

The Ways of Paradise: A pitch-perfect satire of academia written in footnotes - The Berliner

Translated by Saskia Vogel, The Ways of Paradise from Peter Cornell gives us beguilingly ambiguous novel-in-footnotes.

www.the-berliner.com

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Alexander Wells @ajbwells.bsky.social · Jan 14

dear brains trust – for a column about the book blurb – what are your most loved and most hated blurbs of all time? or clichés that drive you mad when you see them? or funny blurb stories? come at me. gerne auch auf deutsch

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Madeleine Watts @madeleinewatts.bsky.social · Jan 2

Now the new year has begun the release of ELEGY, SOUTHWEST is imminent. If you’re keen on preordering, you can get a 25% discount for the next fortnight with this link from Tertulia, a much better option than ordering from other Terrible Companies that will go unnamed.

tertulia.com/book/elegy-s...

Elegy, Southwest, by Madeleine Watts

A timely and urgent novel following a young married couple on a road trip through the American southwest as they grapple with the breakdown of their relationship in the shadow of environmental collaps...

tertulia.com

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Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · Oct 21

Tomorrow in Berlin: a multilingual reading of Adania Shibli's Minor Detail at Hopscotch Reading Room, 14:00 - 17:00.

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