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tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
@tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
1.3K followers 230 following 40 posts
Lecturer, writer, mostly German and queer stuff, some radio, lots of music 🎶 he/him 🍉
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
nsuwatch.bsky.social
Wir gedenken heute Bahide Arslan, Yeliz Arslan und Ayşe Yılmaz. Sie wurden vor 33 Jahren, in der Nacht vom 22. auf den 23. November 1992, bei den rassistischen Brandanschlägen von #Mölln ermordet. Weitere Mitglieder der Familie wurden zum Teil schwer verletzt.
#KeinVergessen
Sharepic: Schwarzer Hintergrund, ein schwarz-weißes Bild vom Gedenken an die rassistischen Brandanschläge von Mölln 1992. Text: Wir gedenken Bahide Arslan, Yeliz Arslan und Ayşe Yılmaz.
November 23, 2025 at 7:52 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
Germany never even made it as far as "bad apples" theories, so dunno why I bother, but this is wild: "Diese Erklärung hinterfragt allerdings nicht, inwieweit Strukturen und der Corpsgeist in Polizei, Bundeswehr und anderen staatlichen Behörden rechte Einstellungen begünstigen" 👀
November 19, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
ags-gbi.bsky.social
In response to recent news of the University of Nottingham's devastating plan to cut modern languages degrees, the AGS President (@pdavies.bsky.social) has sent a joint letter of protest to the UoN VC and the Chair of University Council on behalf of the AGS, W+IGS and the GLA.

Link to the letter 👇
November 18, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
corinnepainter.bsky.social
"Nottingham and Leicester are taking a swing at language departments. But those proposing closures have taken their eye off the ball" Languages graduates are in high demand and have a lot to offer the economy and society www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/late...
The latest threat to UK modern languages is yet another faux pas
Nottingham and Leicester are taking a swing at language departments. But those proposing closures have taken their eye off the ball, say four linguists
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 14, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
pollymcmichael.bsky.social
Modern Languages students at the University of Nottingham have started a petition to save languages degrees. Please sign and share www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...
Sign the Petition
Stop the removal of Modern Languages courses at the University of Nottingham!
www.change.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
ucuscotland.bsky.social
Busy @ducuuo.bsky.social picket lines on day two of their week long strike to save jobs and oppose compulsory redundancies #SaveHE #SaveDundeeUni #NoCompulsoryRedundancies
November 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
sta-modlangs.bsky.social
Read about the traditional ‘Altar de muertos’ in the foyer of Buchanan Building, commemorating the Day of the Dead, largely celebrated in Spanish-speaking countries, especially in Mexico, 2 Nov. The Altar will be displayed from until 5 Nov: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modern-langu...
October 30, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
historyworkshop.org.uk
May Ayim was key to the Black German civil rights movement. But what about her creative, feminist anti-racist work across Europe?

How did this exemplify 'cosmopolitanism from below'? Prof. Tiffany N. Florvil on Ayim's life and vision:
🧵5/5

www.historyworkshop.org.uk/feminism/may...
May Ayim’s Cosmopolitanism from Below in Europe
May Ayim was key to the Black German civil rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s. But how did her work across borders exemplify cosmopolitanism from below? Tiffany N. Florvil explores the life and ne...
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
October 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
sharondoduaotoo.bsky.social
"Für Jüdinnen und Juden kann es aus der Geschichte nur eine Lehre geben: Die Einteilung in jene, die aus dem #Stadtbild entfernt gehören, und in jene, die in das Stadtbild passen und deshalb verschont bleiben, ist nicht hinnehmbar"

~ Sasha Marianna Salzmann @taz.de
Au­to­r*in zur Stadtbild-Debatte: Der böse Traum vom gereinigten Deutschland
Woran will Bundeskanzler Merz eigentlich das irregulär Migrantische erkennen? Seine Äußerungen zum deutschen Stadtbild sind menschenverachtend.
taz.de
October 19, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
katielmsutton.bsky.social
@brangwenstone.bsky.social and I are giving a talk next week in the Aus German Studies seminar online at 3.30pm AEDT - "Bad Feelings to Utopian Promises: Non-Binary Dissociative
Poetics in Strubel’s Blaue Frau and Salzmann’s Außer sich" - trans studies/German lit, DM for a zoom link
Image of author Antje Rávik Strubel and the abstract pink cover their 2021 novel "Blaue Frau" (Blue Woman) Image of author Sascha Salzmann and their 2017 novel "Ausser sich" (Outside/Beside oneself)
October 17, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
ags-gbi.bsky.social
Happy to announce that a recording of the "President's Guest" event at the AGS 2025 conference in Oxford last month is now available to stream on the AGS website.

The event saw writer, academic, artist & activist Prof Natasha A. Kelly in conversation with Dr Kirstin Gwyer.

Link below👇
Photo of Prof Natasha Kelly
October 13, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
bgissibl.bsky.social
Gunzert House, Bismarck Rock, Old Boma, Lugalo, Serengeti & Co.: Ein dekolonialer Reiseführer für Tanzania - dreisprachig, fundiert recherchiert und von Amani Abeid großartig illustriert! Als kostenfreier pdf-Download hier: decolonial-travel-guide-tanzania.com
Decolonial Travel Guide Tanzania
Willkommen zu deiner dekolonialen Lernreise durch Tansania / Karibu safari yako ya kujifunza ya decolonial
decolonial-travel-guide-tanzania.com
October 1, 2025 at 8:08 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
In case anyone with a UK passport is watching Farage thinking "what he's saying won't apply to me", pay attention to what the far right is proposing in Germany, because where do you think British fascists are getting their ideas from?
historyned.bsky.social Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · Sep 26
The Bavarian AfD is proposing a review of those who were issued German citizenship in recent years: this is step one in their proposed "remigration" plan so that mass ethnic cleansing can take place within the bounds of the law. www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/afd-s...
Verlust von deutschem Pass? AfD nimmt deutsche Staatsbürger ins Visier
Menschen, die in den vergangenen Jahren den deutschen Pass erhalten hat, sollen überprüft werden.
www.sueddeutsche.de
September 26, 2025 at 8:10 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
This is a brilliant exhibition of some amazing contemporary art inspired by Lafcadio Hearn - and if you haven't explored Ushaw College (I hadn't) it's a very cool site. Lots of good Victoriana. Congrats to Fraser (@durhamimh.bsky.social), Claire, Steven, Kieran and the Kwaidan exhibition team!
September 19, 2025 at 9:42 PM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
I have had both colleagues and students dismiss my work as my "hobby and interest". To translate for anyone for whom it isn't obvious: it's because I'm queer and my research is queer. And that is called homophobia.

I've said it before but it's been a while: Fuck UUK.
September 12, 2025 at 8:44 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
Went to the launch of Kwaidan, an exhibition of prints by Irish and Japanese artists inspired by Lafcadio Hearn's ghost stories. Curated by Claire Marsland at Ushaw College, brought to Durham by Fraser Riddell @durham-university.bsky.social and conceived by Stephen Lawlor and Kieran Owens.
Room with vaulted Victorian wood ceiling with a brown display case in the foreground with the Kwaidan exhibition title image and Ushaw College logo, filled with books. In the distance, blue display boards are showing a series of prints and paintings stretching back into the long gallery.
September 6, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
leilaessai.bsky.social
A genuine joy to share our shortlist for the Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025. Congratulations to Maryam Aras, Christiane Frohmann, Miedya Mahmod, Manja Präkels, and Ruth-Maria Thomas! tucholsky-gesellschaft.de/kurt-tuchols...
Screenshot: „Die Jury für den Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025 hat die eingegangenen Vorschläge gesichtet und sich auf folgende alphabetisch geordnete Shortlist für die Preisvergabe 2025 verständigt: • Aras, Maryam (Infos z.B. hier). • Frohmann, Christiane (Infos z.B. hier) • Mahmod, Miedya (Infos z.B. hier) • Präkels, Manja (Infos z.B. hier) • Thomas, Ruth-Maria (Infos z.B. hier)“
September 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
sharondoduaotoo.bsky.social
#Berlin Wir feiern trotzdem! 🥳

Morgen (Samstag, 23.08) ab 14:00Uhr am Hausvogteiplatz

Kommt zahlreich! 🫶🏾

#AntonWilhelmAmoStraße
#Amofest
August 22, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
isdberlin.bsky.social
Die ersten Schilder hängen schon….
August 21, 2025 at 9:05 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
V late bc summer, but am excited my article "Desire, Sex and Surveillance" is out in the fab volume Socialist Subjectivities @uofmpress.bsky.social.

It's a queer methods piece from my archival work on East German queer soldiers in the Stasi files.

Open access: press.umich.edu/Books/S/Soci...
First page of my chapter with title Desire, Sex and Surveillance: Queer Methods and the Stasi's Files on the East German Military by Tom Smith. Opening paragraph reads: Researching East Germany’s armed forces, I often encounter reminders of how queerness can be overlooked in memories around straight-centered institutions, when people remain incredulous or advise that “back then it wasn’t an issue.” Josie McLellan has also commented on straight East German interviewees’ lack of awareness about queer compatriots. As decades of scholarship have shown, however, queerness was widely discussed and negotiated by queer and straight people throughout the lifetime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Straight people spent time and effort developing policies and processes within the state’s institutions to understand, limit, and regulate queer sexuality, although archives often say more about what institutions failed to know. Queer East Germans were active participants in socialist institutions, shaping them in small, everyday ways. They may even have intended for traces of queerness to recede from view. As José Esteban Muñoz reminds us, the ephemeral nature of queer evidence has often had a protective function. Against the backdrop of the GDR’s heterosexual norms around how lives unfold, queer methods allow insights into traces of intimacy and community in official documents, showing soldiers developing queer East German subjectivities and life trajectories through their military service. Cover of Socialist Subjectivities: Queering East Germany under Honecker. White and green lettering on black background. Editors Scott Harrison, Jeff Hayton and Katharine White. Picture showing glass window reflecting Berlin architecture while someone on a ladder mounts advertising for the 40-year anniversary of the GDR on the window. Contents page with intro by Scott Harrison, Jeff Hayton and Katharine White. Articles listed by Mary Fulbrook, Markus Wahl, Katharine White, Tom Smith, Catrina de Rivera, Kyrill Kunakhovich, Scott Harrison, Larissa R. Stiglich (continued in next image) Second half of contents page listing articles by Mor Geller, Briana J. Smith, Jeff Hayton, Julia E. Ault, Timothy Scott Brown and an epilogue by Eli Rubin.
August 11, 2025 at 10:57 AM
tomsmithgerman.bsky.social
Solidarity with trans friends and colleagues around today's ruling. This judicial activism has ignored the principal function of laws in Scotland and England created to protect minorities. A real blow to human rights in the UK and we now have to push the government to legislate better. 🏳️‍⚧️
April 16, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
elizabethward.bsky.social
And once again we see ow, when a formerly centre right party adopts the language & ideas of the far right, it doesn’t “win back” those voters, but rather strengthens the far right. In voters’ minds, doing so legitimises their position: why vote for an imitation when you can vote for the “real” thing
Exit polls showing the AfD in second place
February 23, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
die-linke.de
Wir sind drin! Die Linke wird in der kommenden Legislaturperiode wieder in Fraktionsstärke im Bundestag vertreten sein!

Wir danken euch für euer Vertrauen, eure Stimmen und das unglaubliche Engagement in den letzten Wochen!
February 23, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
benwritesthings.bsky.social
A coalition between CDU and AFD is an extreme, undesired event even for CDU voters. 81% of CDU voters, above the overall 70% of voters, are opposed to seeing the AFD take any form of state power. It is important to remember that.
February 23, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈
historyned.bsky.social
Preliminary thoughts on the German election results so far:
1) Chasing the far right vote by demagoguing on migration has brought the CDU/CSU it's second worst performance in history. It's in first place, but it's a weaker result than anything Merkel posted.
February 23, 2025 at 5:41 PM