book*ish: Rude Girl, by Birgit Weyhe
@ Goethe-Institut Chicago
150 N Michigan Ave, Suite 420, Chicago, IL 60601
Opening Wednesday, April 9th, from 6PM - 8PM
Welcome to book*ish, our reading group for contemporary German graphic novels! Practice your German through discussing each book’s main themes and the artist’s stylistic choices. All are invited, whether you just started learning or are already fluent in the German language.
Our third book club session features the graphic novel ‘Rude Girl,’ by Birgit Weyhe.
The white German graphic novelist Birgit Weyhe teaches at a US college through an academic exchange programme. At a conference of American Germanists in the Midwest, she is accused of cultural expropriation. Is she exploiting her privileges as a white writer when she tells stories about Black people?
She meets Priscilla Layne, an African American professor of German studies with Caribbean roots. Growing up, Priscilla is labelled an ‘Oreo’: too white for her Black classmates, and too Black for the white kids. Rebelling against everything and everyone all at once, she joins the skinhead movement and becomes a ‘rude girl,’ discovering a community where she feels valued. Music, clothes, hair, food, class, race, gender, education – her life and identity are a complex composite.
But how should Birgit Weyhe tell a life story like Priscilla’s? What mistakes does she need to avoid? The act of storytelling itself becomes its own narrative layer in this unique graphic biography.
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Tags: American History, Birgit Weyhe, Book Club, book*ish, book*ish: Rude Girl by Birgit Weyhe, German Culture, Goethe-Institut Chicago, Rude Girl
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