European-flavored chips, gas station Nazis, bell hooks “all about love,” the German literary establishment: in this text, Olivia Wenzel, a playwright and performer from Berlin, writes about her writing between things like these. And about the CIRCLE, I am reluctant to say “lese-kreis”; it sounds stuffy and like the club der toten dichter. we also discuss music, art, films, series, academic theories.” as a place where strategies are developed. Against the annoying falseness of diversity performance in the literature business, against invisible and perfidious teachers, the fear of racist violence, whiteness as a universal norm. Fortunately, there is the CIRCLE – “we are so far five to seven people from different disciplines and of similar age, meeting about once a month. no one in our circle – so far, unfortunately, only i call us mysteriously “THE CIRCLE” – is white. that feels surprisingly good.”
DER KREIS is here a place of exchange, of strengthening assembly or of forward planning in the face of racist structures and (everyday) aggression. It is a shelter and at the same time a place to question one’s own socialization, “when preparing the reading, i once imagined discussing these excerpts with THE CIRCLE. my view of the texts changed immediately. i caught two passages in the careless use of racialized ascriptions, shortened them bashfully, rephrased.”
We have already presented another text by Olivia Wenzel as a reading recording here, this one appeared on the blog “DAS” DARF MAN* JA WOHL (NOCH) SCHREIBEN MÜSSEN?!1″ by Kabeljau & Dorsch . You can read an interview with the author from 2013 here.