Book Project: Heavy Load-Bearing Modernity: A Cultural Geology of Albert Speer’s Berlin/Germania (in-progress)
My book project examines the complex material, cultural, and intellectual history of the heavy load-bearing cylinder that still weighs upon the city’s ground and memory. The massive ferroconcrete cylinder is 46 feet tall, has a diameter of 69 feet, and weighs 12,650 tons, which is more than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro combined. It even outweighs the heaviest structure ever built, the Cheops pyramid, in terms of soil pressure. Underneath it are measurement chambers that go as deep as 60 feet underground. Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, ordered the cylinder to simulate the weight of a gigantic Triumphal Arch projected as the major entrance gate to a completely remodeled Berlin: Germania. This plan capitalized on forced labor, deportation, and large-scale demolition, and was deeply tied into the network of concentration camps. By turning my analytical lens shaped by my training in literary studies toward a brutalist piece of ferroconcrete, my contribution is the translation of abstract construction data into a culturally legible language. I argue that the heavy load-bearing cylinder, as an engineering blueprint for both fascist imperial fantasies and the modern metropolis, was forged in a crucible of progress, ambition, megalomania, and destruction. As such, it is the dialectical emblem of German-Fascist modernity. To tell this story, I draw upon my findings from fieldwork, spatial ethnographic research, and archival studies, and examine an extraordinary trove of documents from the disciplines of soil mechanics, architecture, and urban planning through a philosophical and cultural-historical framework, including unseen maps, construction plans, geological measurements, correspondences, transactions, experiment reports, photographs, and more.
Essay: A Cultural Geology of Be(long)ing: Ge-schiebe, Ge-schichte, Ge-wichte (forthcoming)
In this paper, I juxtapose a close-reading of a piece of soil, namely glacial till, extracted from the earth as part of the historical layer of German fascism, with a fairly distant-reading of said piece of earth, as part of the geological layer of the Anthropocene; as it belongs to both of these histories (and others) simultaneously. Building upon Koselleck’s conceptualization of history as—metaphorical—layers that I merge with current (neo-)materialist readings (Latour, McCain, McGurl, etc.) of history, I will argue that this particular piece of ground belongs to a complex space-time-identity-continuum that I lay out in three interlocking modes of metahistorical writing: Ge-schiebe (›that which is pushing or being pushed‹), Ge-schichte (›that which is layering or being layered‹) and, most of all, part of Ge-wichte (›that which is weighing or being weighed upon‹). The act of modeling my cultural geology after a piece of glacial till that physically and conceptually travels between the layers of German fascism, the Anthropocene, geological history, and cosmological history, among other layers that rub against, invade, fertilize, and contaminate each other, whilst being semantically enriched with pieces from all of these layers, deepens conventional understandings of belonging (Ahmed, etc.) and aims to offer an open-ended way to capture the shifting, mobile, and fluid foundations of writing an open-ended history of belonging-in-the-cosmos.
Digitization: Degebo Archives (ongoing)
The archives of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bodenmechanik, Degebo, located at the Technische Universität Berlin, hold the documents regarding the cylinder, the Triumphbogen, Große Halle, and other related projects and are of immense historical value. After photographing and scanning thousands of files, a process started by Berlin-based architect Michael Richter for the brochure »Der Schwerbelastungskörper. Das mysteriöse Erbe der Reichshauptstadt« (2005) and artist Susanne Kriemann for her collage »12 650 000« (2005-2008), supported by the community organization Berliner Unterwelten e.V., I hope to launch a digitization project to make the documents available for the public and am looking currently for collaboration partners. Feel free to reach out if you want to get involved in the format of an exhibition, digitization, etc.
Talks
Guest lecture: »Heavy Load-Bearing Modernity: A Cultural Geology of Albert Speer’s Berlin/ Germania,« presented at the Michigan Society of Fellows (October 2024)
»A Cultural Geology of Be(long)ing: Ge-schiebe, Ge-schichte, Ge-wichte,« paper presented in the »Belonging (2): Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twentieth-Century Belongings« (Sponsored by the Emotion Studies Network) at the annual German Studies Association conference in Atlanta, Georgia (September 2024)
Guest Lecture: »Der Schwerbelastungskörpers: Ein Ort der materiellen und symbolischen Schwere,« presented at the community organization Berliner Unterwelten e.V. (July 2024)
Seminar: »Reichshauptstadt Germania« offered by the Berliner Unterwelten e.V. to explore the plans of Albert Speer to remodel Berlin via fieldwork and presentations (June 10-14).
Presentation: »Thinking through Soil: A Cultural Geology of Be(long)ing,« presented at the »Thinking from the Substrate« Workshop (June 3-5, 2024) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Dept. III: »Artifacts, Action, Knowledge«), Berlin
Reflection paper: »Violent Landscapes: Echoes of the Fascist Past,« contributed to the »Resonance in Art, Film, Literature, Music, and Theory« seminar at the annual German Studies Association conference in Indianapolis, Indiana (October 2021)
Paper: »Towering History: The Concept of the Baugenie from Nietzsche to Speer,« presented at the annual German Studies Association conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (October 2018)
Paper: »A Critique of Benjamin’s Digital Renaissance. The Age of Digital Reproduction and the Dangers of Spiel,« presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (October 2017)
Paper: »How can we translate into words that which the image tells us? A filmosophic answer through the lens of Nietzsche and Lang’s Metropolis,« presented at Translation Theory Today conference at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York City (May 2016)
Community
Director of GSA Melnitz Movies at the UCLA School for Theater, Film, and Television (2016-2019)
Led, curated, and hosted over 100 free screenings at the James Bridges Theater (300 seats) at the UCLA Film School, incl. premiers, sneak previews, and film festivals with receptions (themes: environmentalism, cultural diversity, mental health, and more)
Hosted/interviewed high-profile guests (filmmakers, actors, activists, scientists, diplomats, etc.) incl. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Gore Verbinski, Consul General Stefan Schneider, Governor Dukakis, Oz Perkins, Zoey Deutch, Wei Te-Sheng, and Marcel Ophuls
Collaborated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (host of the Oscars), the German Consulate Los Angeles, Goethe Insitute Los Angeles, Villa Aurora Thomas Mann House, Wende Museum, American Cinematheque, etc.
News Coverage: LA Times, Times of London, Daily Bruin, etc.
Graduate Student Representative, North Westwood Neighborhood Council (2018-2019)
As part of the Outreach Committee, I organized several screenings to address LA’s housing crisis, e.g. Skid Row Marathon and The Advocates
Invited guest speakers from local community organizations incl. The Shower of Hope and The People's Concern
Collaborated with the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Filme Fatale, the Environmentalist of Color Collective, the Asian Pacific Coalition, Indus at UCLA, etc.
Co-hosted the Women’s Voices, Green Screens, and Ophuls film festivals
Distinguished Service Award, UCLA Graduate Student Associaton (2019)
Press
Convener of the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies »Shadows the 20th Century | Ophuls Film Festival« (June 1-8) with Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert. Featured as Critic’s Choice in the LA Times. Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the French and German Consulate, et al. (2017)
Performances
»The Visit« (after Dürrenmatt), theater performance directed by Philip Broadbent at Brockett Theater, Austin (2013)
»iDentity« (self-written), »The Castle« (after Kafka), and »TOYS / TOYS / TOYS« (written by Tabea Venrath for the Leonhard Frank Award competition), theater performances directed by Daniela Scheuren at Mainfranken Theater, Würzburg (2011, 2012)
»Chaostheorie« and »Konfidenzintervall,« spoken word performance at Poetry Slam, Posthalle Würzburg (2011); written during the Songwriting Seminar at the Institute for Musical Research, University of Würzburg (2011)