Ervin Malakaj
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ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Ervin Malakaj
@ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
4K followers 2.3K following 760 posts
media studies, literary studies, film studies, queer studies; post also in Bosnian/German; plant dad and dog mom; vegan but not annoying about it; writing a book of personal essays 🏳️‍🌈

https://www.ervinmalakaj.com
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ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
UBC peoples: if anyone is interested in free books, DM me and we can arrange a time for you to browse. Because of space issues I have to downsize my office library. Primarily 18th-21st century literature, philosophy, literary history/theory. Much of it in German but also in English and French.
Picture of office with two desks, one covered with piles of books and a bookshelf in the background.
September 26, 2025 at 2:57 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
UBC Queer and Trans German Studies is hosting Andrea Rottmann (FU Berlin) as the next Tobin Distinguished Lecture in Queer and Trans German Studies! The event will take place in person at UBC as well as online. We would be grateful if you could pass the announcement on to your networks.
Lecture title, speaker name, and lecture time/date/location info on a poster, all of which is available on the website for the event. QR code for the online registration for those interested attending via zoom.
August 6, 2025 at 11:41 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
I had the honour of collaborating with @beverlyweber.bsky.social on the most recent issue of English Language Notes on "Refuge and Displacement," with an extensive focus on solidarity structures. Grateful for the journal team and comrades @dukepress.bsky.social.

read.dukeupress.edu/english-lang...
Cover image of the journal featuring the title of the journal, the special issue title, names of editors, and a drawn building with plants growing out of it against a black background. Table of contents. Refuge and Displacement beverly weber and ervin malakaj, Special Issue Editors Introduction Burdened Solidarities Beyond the Impasse ∙ ervin malakaj and beverly weber . 1 Essays Solidarity Among People on the Move: Migrants and Refugees as a Key Feature of Border Abolitionism ∙ ivan bonnin and ismail oubad . 47 Patriarchy Is the Crisis: Approaching Philanthropic Responses to the Global Displacement Polycrisis Through a Postcolonial Feminist Lens rachel gore freed and josh leach . 67 Adaptive and Solidarity Counter Maps for Individuals in Transit at the Ventimiglia Border ∙ livio amigoni, silvia aru, and ismail oubad . 79 Networks of Solidarity and Care in Contemporary Ukrainian Refugees’ Autobiographical Narratives ∙ dana mihĂilescu . 10 3 Solidarity’s Refusals: From Dissent Against Necropolitical Borders to the Rise of Necrofeminism ∙ saida hodžić . 12 6 Of Note Introduction ∙ nan goodman . 14 5 Tracking Animal Studies ∙ mario ortiz-robles . 14 8 On Method in Animal Studies ∙ dominic o’key . 151
July 1, 2025 at 6:24 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
It is out! @jonahgarde.bsky.social's magnificent and field-defining book. A good way to support this fab project and amazing scholar is to acquire the book for your personal or institutional library. You'll notice it is also available open access.

www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...
Book cover for Jonah Garde's "Trans* Geschichten der Moderne »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister." The figure of a ghostly apparition floats behind the text against a dark background.
June 27, 2025 at 7:26 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
@linguacene.bsky.social & I have a new research initiative starting this month. One of a number of projects is an edited volume provisionally titled, “Linguaphobia, Linguistic Indifference, and the Monolingual University.” The CfP is below. More info on our website. Join us!

monolingual.arts.ubc.ca
CfP: Volume on “Linguaphobia, Linguistic Indifference, and the Monolingual University” By Ervin Malakaj on June 12, 2025 Call for Contributions for an Edited Scholarly Book “Linguaphobia, Linguistic Indifference, and the Monolingual University” Edited by David Gramling and Ervin Malakaj, University of British Columbia Timeline Abstracts of 300 words + bio of 100 words, due November 1, 2025 to llimuproject@gmail.com Full essays / articles due August 1, 2026 Project Overview When West Virginia University announced plans in Fall 2023 to shut down all of its instruction in additional languages, this linguistic austerity measure expressed a suspicion that had been brewing since the beginning of the 21st century: that North American universities just do not wish to instruct languages anymore to more than a handful of curious, self-selecting students. Already in 2012, US Secretary of the Treasury and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers had sparked stunned consternation among language teaching professionals when, in a New York Times editorial dismissively titled “What you (really) need to know,” he assured the public that: “English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile.” This book proposes that these tendencies and positions are component parts of a broader, powerful set of strategies that guide North American higher education executives and consultants in restricting the university’s understanding of “the global” to a certain, linguistically indifferent monolingual sense. Their discourses and practices signal a profound retreat from long-standing traditions acknowledging the centrality of language(s) and language-based multilingual communication in service of planetary knowledge-transfer, thus fueling institutional linguaphobia and linguistic indifference in university curricula and research design. For context, two of the forums that have influenced the editors’ understanding of these concepts are here below, though we by no means assume they are definitive: Pipestone Group (2023). “On Linguistic Indifference”. The German Quarterly 96, 3. Gramling, David (2022). “Six types of linguaphobia and why you don’t need them.” UBC Faculty of Arts Web site. We invite scholarly articles and essays in a wide range of genres, disciplines, languages, and formats that propose to answer or complicate any of the following questions: What is linguaphobia and how does it function differently today than in other ages—or differently in a certain location or space of practice than in others? How does “linguistic indifference” affect your discipline and its work in a particular area (teaching, research, conceptualization, funding, activism, recruitment, etc.)? Is “the university” more monolingual or multilingual than it was 20 years ago, 100 years ago? What kind of evidence are we looking at (or ignoring) when we make that determination? Whose interests do linguaphobia and or linguistic indifference serve? At whose expense are they perpetuated and fortified? What scholarly methodologies, traditions, or habits quietly abet linguaphobia and / or linguistic indifference, and what are the manifest costs of such collusion over time? How are linguaphobia and / or linguistic indifference involved in, or crucial to, the rise of authoritarianism and end-times fascism (Klein 2025)? How are these movements, in part, driven by linguaphobia and linguistic indifference? Is linguaphobia always bad? Is linguistic indifference always bad? How do we develop means to assess and identify them, rather than merely condemning them? This book will be at its most successful if it represents a broad set of disciplines and presumptions, far beyond the humanities and social sciences. Natural scientists, applied scientists, economists, mathematicians, engineers, food sciences experts, health care practitioners, educators, business and entrepreneurship experts, astronomers, hydrologists, botanists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and everyone in between are most welcome to contribute. Contributions will be considered in any language or mix of languages. The editors will determine the most suitable venue / publisher for the collection once we have a clearer sense of who is contributing, and on what questions. Feel free to reach out to the editors to brainstorm your contribution, and or to suggest great publishers for the collection. If there is another scholar you think should see this CFP in any field, context, or language, please do share it with them! This project is supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
June 13, 2025 at 3:20 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
writing a bit about the textures of diaspora, with a focus on a bag that goes by many names
Three red-white-and-blue bags aligned next to each other.
May 20, 2025 at 2:42 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
My comrade Lauren just published this excellent book. Queer/German studies peoples would be particularly interested in what she has to say. As would international 19th-century studies scholars. Check out the description.

www.fordhampress.com/978153151051...
Book cover featuring a group of children, the book title, and author name.
April 15, 2025 at 3:20 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
@jeannetteoho.bsky.social und ich bereiten uns auf die nächste @ddgc.bsky.social Lesegruppe vor und freuen uns, mit wunderbaren Leuten diese zwei wichtigen Bücher zu besprechen 🌈🌈
Zwei Bücher auf einem Tisch: Şeyda Kurt’s Hass and bell hooks’ All About Love
March 2, 2025 at 8:17 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
My comrade and drag mom @kyfrack.bsky.social and I are hosting a workshop on queer media theory at the Auerbach Institute of the University of Cologne this summer. Reach out if you are interested in participating. Glad to brainstorm with you. 🌈
Poster with following text against pink and yellow background: CfP: Queer Media Theories Workshop Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies University of Cologne June 26, 2025 This one-day and in-person workshop seeks to bring together scholars working at the intersection of queer studies and media theory. It is inspired by two interrelated dynamics. First, we recognize a resurgent interest to theorize media practice among scholars working in varying disciplinary contexts. Drawing on a robust history of thought about the characteristics of media and their relation to culture, recent scholarship has brought to bear insights about media operations’ relationships to historically and structurally marginalized communities. Second, the last three decades have seen the emergence of extensive lines of inquiry in queer studies grounded in analyses of media. From discussions animated by an interest in global cultural engagement to microhistories of media usage, scholars have charted a rich cultural terrain of queer media practices. Devised as a venue in which participants can continue to think about the intersection between queer studies and media theory, the Queer Media Theories workshop seeks to catalyze existing interests with a focus on theoretically-oriented projects whose themes and methods have thus far been underexplored. There are no geographic, period, or disciplinary limitations for the workshop. The organizers welcome submissions by scholars working at any stage of their career. If you are interested in the project and would like to brainstorm how best you can contribute, reach out to the organizers, who would be glad to help you participate. Limited funds are available to offset some of the cost of participation in the workshop for participants. If you would like to draw on these funds, please indicate your request in the email with as many details as possible. The organizers welcome proposals for 20–30-minute presentations in either English or German related to the workshop theme. The proposal should have a title, an abstract (ca. 250 words), and a bio (ca. 100 words). Please submit this information in an email to both organizers by: March 28, 2025. Acceptance emails will be sent by April 4, 2025. Organizers & Contacts Kyle Frackman (University of British Columbia): kyle.frackman@ubc.ca Ervin Malakaj (University of British Columbia/Erich Auerbach Institute): ervin.malakaj@ubc.ca Sponsorship The Erich Auerbach Institute of the University of Cologne The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
February 18, 2025 at 7:40 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
re: Anita Bryant discourse. Harvey Milk's hope speech in which he deployed the famous "my name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you" slogan has this bit about the orange juice demon herself.
www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/milk...
"About six months ago, Anita Bryant in her speaking to God said that the drought in California was because of the gay people. On November 9, the day after I got elected, it started to rain. On the day I got sworn in, we walked to City Hall and it was kinda nice, and as soon as I said the word "I do," it started to rain again. It's been raining since then and the people of San Francisco figure the only way to stop it is to do a recall petition. That's the local joke."
January 10, 2025 at 12:08 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
The editors let me write about my ongoing obsession: the cinema of Helma Sanders-Brahms, who counts as one of the most prominent women in New German Cinema. She is turning in her grave that a queer Bosnian Muslim is writing about her, for she saw people like me as embodied grossness.
Chapter excerpt: 9 ON DEBILITY IN HELMA SANDERS-BRAHMS’S DIE BERÜHRTE Ervin Malakaj Helma Sanders-Brahms’s Die Berührte (No Mercy, No Future, 1981) was inspired by a letter the director received from a stranger. Rita G., the letter’s named author, recounted details about her sexual relations with over eighty men. Reflecting on the letter’s contents, Sanders-Brahms foregrounds Rita’s social context: “What was scandalous for those around this young woman (parents, psychiatrist, etc.) was the fact that [her sexual partners] were members of the lowest social class: vagrants, guest workers, Black, and disabled men” (Sanders-Brahms and Rita G. 1981, 173).1 Rita’s written account indeed conveys the details of her parents’ extremely negative response to her sexual life: her mother is repulsed by it and even temporarily leaves town, while Rita’s disapproving father convinces his daughter to check into a mental health clinic. Regarding her institutionalization
January 2, 2025 at 5:18 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Friendlies, this gorgeous book on the transnational aesthetics of New German Cinema just came out! Grateful for the work of Marco and Jaimey, who brought us together for an exciting discussion about what is usually cast as heavily national endeavour.

wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814348901/
Book cover for "New German Cinema and its Global Contexts: A transnational Art Cinema." The cover features an image of two people seated on bench hovering above a cityscape.
January 2, 2025 at 5:18 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
The cover!
The cover of the book. Featuring a male presenting body with face and neck covered with flowers. Name of author and title of book on the cover: Ian Fleishman. Flamboyant Fictions: The failed Art of Passing.
December 9, 2024 at 7:14 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
serving fierce fierce fierce
Portrait of Schiller in blue jacket, ruffled shirt, resting his head on arm.
November 18, 2024 at 9:48 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
My fave is the medium Lina Matzinger, who claimed to be able to read books without reading them (aka, like a perfect academic).
Image of Lina in a white dress holding a book to her head while seated on a couch.
November 18, 2024 at 5:25 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
This wonderful project edited by @ilinca.bsky.social, Sean Franzel, and Petra McGillen—i.e., the most amazing 19c-ists—just got published. You might like to put in a library order or request it via ILL.
www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
Book cover for Taking Stock: Media Inventories in the German Nineteenth Century with title, editor info, and a stack of books on the cover.
November 15, 2024 at 3:24 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Thought you might enjoy this palm imprint from a book of the famous German Weimar era palmist Marianne Raschig, who read the palms of stars (revising an article on the book now).
Palm imprint from Marianne Raschig's palmistry guide. The palm belongs to Ossi Oswalda, whose name is printed and her signature adorns the print.
November 13, 2024 at 5:53 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Fab! I need the mug. Will look into getting one tomorrow.

My personal fave is Ossi Oswalda (I wrote an undergrad thesis on her many moons ago). Kind of feel I need to figure out how to get swag with her famous scenes.
Screen grab from Lubitsch’s film I don’t want to be a man featuring Ossi in a tuxedo getting sick smoking a cigar.
November 11, 2024 at 4:27 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
This includes a dossier on research and teaching of Richard Oswald's "Anders als die Andern", a major contribution to international queer cinema. My comrade Shoshana Schwebel and I put the dossier together. It includes translations of film reviews, annotated bibliography, sample teaching material.
Screen shot of the dossier featuring a still from the film.
September 20, 2024 at 4:38 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
If you are teaching Richard Oswald's remarkable early queer melodrama "Anders als die Andern" (Different from the Others, 1919) this fall and are looking for materials let me know. My comrade Shoshana Schwebel and I put together a teaching dossier forthcoming with WeimarCinema.org. We can send draft
The main characters holding hands in the film
September 10, 2024 at 7:05 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
We will also screen the film Valahol Európában (Somewhere in Europe, 1948), directed by Géza von Radványi. Balázs co-authored the film’s screenplay. The screening will be introduced by Eszter Polonyi (University of Nova Gorica).
Screengrab from the film featuring a man and two children in an open landscape.
August 17, 2024 at 6:58 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Our interest is to bring Balázs in conversation with ongoing critical theories in the humanities to examine both the limits and potentials of his theory of film. Scholars working in the realm of disability studies, critical race discourse, ethnic studies, queer studies, media studies, etc.
Workshop program for Friday, Sept 6. All info is on website. Workshop program for Saturday. All info is on website.
August 17, 2024 at 6:56 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
100 years ago Béla Balázs published "Der sichtbare Mensch, oder die Kultur des Films" (The Visible Man, or the Culture of Film). The book became a foundational text in film theory. My comrade Paul Dobryden and I are organizing a workshop for the occasion. german.as.virginia.edu/visible-cent...
Book cover for Der sichtbare Mensch
August 17, 2024 at 6:51 AM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
@mahaelhissy.bsky.social is hosting this amazing series and I’m up next to talk about the inimitable Lana Bastašić, literature/solidarity, and be in conversation with people whose work I admire. 🌈🌈 Talk is online and check out the rest of lineup. www.goethe.de/prj/vor/de/v...
Screenshot of website featuring abstract, title, and portrait. All info is on website.
May 29, 2024 at 2:47 PM
ervinmalakaj.bsky.social
Haruki and I are organizing a get together on the topic of queer and trans cinema studies next weekend. Come hang out with us if you are in the Vancouver area.
Poster with event information: March 30, 12-5:30pm, Buchanan Tower 997, UBC. Schedule for session 1, 12:15-1:45pm, with presentations by Ilinca Iurascu, JP Catungal, and Haruki Sekiguchi. Schedule for session 2, 2-3:30pm, with presentations by William Brown, Shubham Arora, Danielle Wong, and Tim Frandy. Schedule for session 3, 3:45-5:15pm, with presentations by Braden Russell, Kiran Sugar, Ervin Malakaj, Chelsea Birks.
March 23, 2024 at 4:19 PM