2017 THE BERLIN JOURNAL ALL f A Magazine from the American Academy in Berlin Number Thirty-One Fall 2017 NUMBER 31 THE BERLIN JOURNAL THE BERLIN CREsCENT AMONg THE Stars by Nancy Foner BAd NEws by Jill Abramson ArtisT PortfOLIOs Ran Ortner, A. L. Steiner LIsTENINg througH THE Iron Curtain by Peter Schmelz Fiction by Carole Maso, V. V. Ganeshananthan, and Thomas Chatterton Williams dIgitalization ANd Geopolitics The Holbrooke Forum We are deeply grateful to TELEFÓNICA DEUTSCHLAND HOLDING AG and STEFAN VON HOLTZBRINCK for their generous support of this issue of the Berlin Journal. CONTENTS focus features notebook 4 36 74 6 Nicole’s Father Is Not gERMAN 38 LIsTENINg througH 76 REMEMBERINg by Kristen Monroe THE Iron Curtain ANNA-MARIA KELLEN by Peter Schmelz 12 CREsCENT AMONg THE Stars 78 THE 2017 by Nancy Foner 42 PERfORMINg Sound HENRy A. KIssINgER PRIzE an Interview with Raven Chacon 16 THE Mythology Of 82 AL Gore THE Sectarian MIddLE EAsT 44 THE NAMEs at THE American AcadEMy by Ussama S. Makdisi by Carole Maso 84 KERRy JAMEs MARsHALL 20 ARTIsT PORTfOLIO 46 ARTIsT PORTfOLIO at THE American AcadEMy A. L. Steiner; text by Boychild Ran Ortner; 86 Welcoming NEw TRUsTEEs text by Michael Cunningham 24 UNdercovER OUgHTs 87 Dedication Of by Jacqueline Ross 52 THE Autobiography THE Fellows PAvILION StudIEs Of Solomon MAIMON 28 IN A NAME Translation by Paul Reitter 89 ProfILEs in ScholarsHIP by Thomas Chatterton Williams 58 GardENINg 91 BOOK REvIEws 32 THE TIdE Was ALwAys HIgH by V. V. Ganeshananthan by Norman Naimark, Paul Guyer, by Josh Kun and Andrea Orzoff 61 “THEy, THE People” by Dilip Gaonkar 96 Alumni BOOKs 64 BAd NEws 97 Supporters ANd dONORs by Jill Abramson 67 the HOLBROOKE fORUM Eberhard Sandschneider; A Conversation between Stephen Hadley and Christoph Heusgen CONTRIBUTORS Jill Abramson teaches nonfiction Minnesota. She is the fall 2017 Heyden in Fiction. Kristen Monroe at Urbana-Champaign, and the writing at Harvard University. Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow is Chancellor’s Professor of Politi- Daimler Fellow in fall 2017. A former executive editor of the in Fiction. Dilip Gaonkar is Profes- cal Science at the University of Peter Schmelz is Associate Pro- New York Times, she was the spring sor in Rhetoric and Public Culture California, Irvine, and the spring fessor of Musicology at Arizona 2017 Fritz Stern Lecturer at the at Northwestern University, and a 2018 Dirk Ippen Fellow. Yitzhak Y. State University, and a fall 2017 American Academy in Berlin. fall 2017 Bosch Fellow in Public Melamed is a professor of philoso- Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow. Boychild is a performance artist Policy. Paul Guyer is Jonathan phy at Johns Hopkins University. A. L. Steiner is a multimedia artist living and working in Los Angeles. Nelson Professor of Humanities Norman Naimark is Robert and living in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, Michael Cunningham is a senior and Philosophy at Brown University. Florence McDonnell Professor in and the Ellen Maria Gorrissen lecturer at Yale University and the He was a spring 2017 Daimler East European Studies at Stanford Fellow in fall 2017. Eberhard Pulitzer Prize-winning author of six Fellow. Josh Kun is Professor of University. He was an Axel Springer Sandschneider is the former direc- novels. Raven Chacon is a com- Communication and American Fellow in spring 2011. Ran Ortner tor of the research institute of the poser, performer, and installation Studies and Ethnicity at the Uni- is an artist living in Brooklyn. German Council on Foreign Rela- artist living in Albuquerque, New versity of Southern California, He is the spring 2018 Ellen Maria tions. He holds a chair in Chinese Mexico. He is the spring 2018 Inga and a spring 2018 Bosch Fellow in Gorrissen Fellow. Andrea Orzoff politics and international relations Maren Otto Fellow in Music Com- Public Policy. Ussama S. Makdisi is Associate Professor of History at Freie Universität Berlin. Abraham position. Nancy Foner is Distin- is Professor of History and at New Mexico State University. P. Socher is director of the Jewish guished Professor of Sociology at Arab-American Educational Foun- Paul Reitter is Professor of German studies program at Oberlin College. Hunter College and Graduate dation Chair of Arab Studies at and the director of the Humanities Jan Techau is the director of the Center, City University of New York, Rice University, and the spring 2018 Institute at The Ohio State Uni- American Academy in Berlin’s and the fall 2017 Berthold Leibin- Siemens Fellow. Carole Maso is a versity, and a spring 2018 John P. Richard C. Holbrooke Forum. ger Fellow. V. V. Ganeshananthan writer and Professor of Literary Birkelund Fellow in the Human- Thomas Chatterton Williams is a is a writer and Assistant Professor Arts at Brown University. She is the ities. Jacqueline Ross is Professor writer living in Washington, DC. of English at the University of spring 2018 Mary Ellen von der of Law at the University of Illinois He is a fall 2017 Holtzbrinck Fellow. the berlin journal the american academy Mathias Döpfner, Marina Kellen support in berlin French, Hans-Michael Giesen, Number Thirty-One, Anthony T. Grafton, C. Boyden The Academy is entirely funded by Fall 2017 president Gray, Vartan Gregorian, Andrew private, tax-deductible donations. Michael P. Steinberg S. Gundlach, Florian Henckel Contributions may be made: publisher Michael P. Steinberg chief operating officer von Donners marck, Wolfgang A. in germany editor R. Jay Magill, Jr. Christian U. Diehl Herrmann, Stefan von Holtzbrinck, by bank transfer to: managing editor Johana Gallup Dirk Ippen, Wolfgang Ischinger, American Academy in Berlin advertising Berit Ebert Am Sandwerder 17–19 Josef Joffe, Michael M. Kellen, Berliner Sparkasse design Susanna Dulkinys, 14109 Berlin Michael S. Klein, John C. Kornblum, BLZ 100 500 00 Julia Sysmäläinen Tel. (49 30) 80 48 3-0 Regine Leibinger, Pascal Levensohn, Account: 660 000 9908 Fax (49 30) 80 48 3-111 Vincent A. Mai, Wolfgang Malchow, IBAN: Copyright © 2017 americanacademy.de Nina von Maltzahn, Kati Marton, DE07 1005 0000 6600 0099 08 American Academy in Berlin Julie Mehretu, Nader Mousavizadeh, BIC: BELADEBEXXX ISSN 1610-6490 14 East 60th Street, Suite 604 Michael Müller (ex officio), Sandra New York, NY 10022 E. Peterson, George E. Rupp, Volker in the united states cover image Ran Ortner, Invert, Tel. (1) 212 588-1755 Schlöndorff, Peter Y. Solmssen, by check payable to: 2002. Back wall, mirror, Fax (1) 212 588-1758 Michael P. 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Goeltz, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, The American Academy in Berlin’s latest trustees Manfred Bischoff, Leon Norman Pearlstine financial report may be obtained by Botstein, Martin Brand, Stephen writing to The American Academy in Berlin, 14 East 60th Street, Suite 604, New York, B. Burbank, Gahl Hodges Burt, executive director emeritus NY 10022, or to the Charities Bureau, 120 Gerhard Casper, Roger Cohen, Gary Smith Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10271. PRESIDENT’S NOTE The Promise of Dialogue Welcome to THE 2017–18 issue of the Berlin Journal, an in- Maria Gorrissen Fellow, will work on a history of medieval tellectual yearbook that mirrors the concerns and conver- Lampedusa and its near-millennial past as a European re- sations enlivening the Hans Arnhold Center this academic ceiving-point for African migrants. “Race in Comparative year. From the literary, musical, and visual arts to some of Perspective” will serve as the Academy’s second focal the most pressing issues facing politics and societies, the theme; the comparison involves both transatlantic and in- commitments outlined in this issue combine distinct disci- terdisciplinary dialogues, as is so strongly implied in and plines into a panoply of incisive work and thought. among the contributions by Foner, Monroe, and Thomas The fellows represented herein are members of our thir- Chatterton Williams in this issue. ty-ninth and fortieth classes, marking the beginning of the In a brief address to the opening-night audience of the twentieth year of our fellowship program, which began in Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra on September 8, music direc- the autumn of 1998 and included playwright Arthur Miller, tor Iván Fischer remarked that every rehearsal begins with a poet C.K. Williams, and architecture critic Diana Ketcham. traversal of a chorale by J.S. Bach. What a resonant com- That same year saw the publication of American Academy ment for the cultural analyst—and an invocation of what founder Richard Holbrooke’s To End a War, his memoir of composer and spring 2018 Inga Maren Otto Fellow Raven conflict and peacemaking in the Balkans. Anticipating this Chacon celebrates as the “soft pace of the city.” Fischer’s anniversary, our Holbrooke Forum will convene a gathering disclosure affirms how and why Berlin’s legacy has inspired of policymakers and scholars this October to explore what so many American Academy scholars over the years to Holbrooke and his team accomplished in resolving that war study music’s interface with politics and religion. and consider the challenges that persist in the region. TheKonzerthausorchester, founded in East Berlin, in 1952, In describing the Balkan turmoil of the 1990s as a polit- alongside its much older sibling, the Berlin State Orchestra, ical crisis, Holbrooke challenged the popular notion and re- or Staatskapelle, founded in 1570, carries subconscious mem- curring claim that the region was fundamentally resistant ories of cultural life in the German Democratic Republic, to diplomatic intervention.