Arzu Ferah Demirkapi
Ms. Demirkapi is the former Deputy Education Attachée of the General Consulate of Turkey in Berlin. She now works as a consultant with Turkish and German-Turkish citizens who are establishing new businesses. Her expertise is in Education and she provides school supervision and consulate lessons (Turkish language and Turkish culture and religion). She owns a consulting firm, called “Türkisblau”. Ms. Demirkapi will accompany us to the new mosque (_ehitlik Moshe), and she will arrange for our visit to the Turkish Community Center, and to meet with Turkish women who live and work in Berlin.
Dr. Helmut Franz
Excursion highlights are Helmut Franz's tours of Potsdam, Eisenhüttenstadt, Görlitz, Bautzen, Meissen, and especially Dresden. Born and raised in Dresden, he left the German Democratic Republic in 1961 and worked as chemical technician in West Germany and South Africa. He then studied political science at the Universität Marburg and Freie Universität Berlin (Ph.D. 1983) with a focus on Chinese language and society, including field research in Taiwan and Hong Kong on a fellowship from the Volkswagen Foundation. He worked as research assistant at the FU Berlin, held lectures and seminars for businesses and adult education institutes, led study trips to China, and spent several years as human resources manager for Shanghai Volkswagen. In 1989 he returned to Berlin where he worked as instructor for the Informationszentrum Berlin, as director of the Berlin center of the Schiller International University, as professor for the Teikyo University Berlin Campus, and most recently as instructor for the School for International Training and Lexia International. Apart from his work with foreign students in Berlin, he also continues to lead study tours to China, India, Nepal, and Burma for German-speaking participants with Studiosus.
He has published two books, Herrschaft und Industriearbeit in der Sowjetunion und China (Frankfurt: Campus, 1984) and Volksrepublik China. Eine politische Landeskunde, with E. Barthel and W. Pfennig (Berlin: Colloquium, 1983), as well as articles on labor education in China. Foreign languages include Chinese, English, and French. Helmut Franz divides his time between Asia and Europe.
Carol Scherer (Academic Director, Lexia International in Berlin)
With a focus on the interplay of culture and politics, Carol Scherer completed a dual major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in Western European Studies (Residential College) and with highest honors in German, and her M.A. at the University of Chicago in modern European history. She has taught at the Uniwersytet Jagiellonski in Krakow and the University of Chicago in German cultural studies, feminist theory, and the history and memory of the Holocaust. Scholarships and awards include a two-year DAAD dissertation research grant, The Van Holst Prize in History from the University of Chicago, and a fellowship to the Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. Her dissertation focuses on the cultural politics of municipal authorities, museums and collecting, and voluntary associations in late nineteenth century Frankfurt am Main. Publications and lectures include "German Kultur" in Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990, ed. Dieter K. Buse (Garland, 1998), "Historic preservation as politics of resistance," at the colloquium Renaissance der Gothik.Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt (Museum Goch), translation of the Bernard Lösener memoir in Legislating the Holocaust: The Lösener Memoirs and Other Documents, ed. Karl A. Schleunes (Westview, 2001), and other translations. As Academic Director for Lexia in Berlin, she was inspired by Documenta11 to create a parallel visual studies track for the Lexia in Berlin program. In addition to the overall program concept and academic advising, she is responsible for assisting students in the transition to life and study abroad.
Cristiana da Silva (Architecture Program Coordinator, Lexia International in Berlin)
Cristiana da Silva is a Brazilian-born, U.S. educated architect, who has lived and worked in Berlin since 1995. She received a Master of Architecture degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University. She also studied with the architect Peter Zumthor at SCI-ARC in Lugano, Switzerland.
After working at the office of Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners in New York, she moved to Berlin, where she collaborated with different architects in numerous competitions and the planning of buildings such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin (Müller Reimann Architekten) and a university building in Lugano (Bruno Fioretti Marquez Architekten). Since 2001 she has been working on her own projects in Brazil, New York and Berlin. She has lectured on Berlin's contemporary architecture at the University of São Paulo and has been guest to student presentations at universities in Brazil, the U.S. and Germany.
Cristiana da Silva discusses the challenges and opportunities posed by the fall of the Berlin Wall to architecture and urban planning.
Mark Simon (Photographer and filmmaker)
Mark Simon is an accomplished photographer and filmmaker. At SUNY Binghamton he completed a double major in European History and Independent and Experimental Film, where he worked with Nick Ray and Ken Jacobs. He went on to edit documentary films for, among others, PBS's “Great Americans” series, including a film on Albert Einstein, and for theatrical release. Following its premier at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1990, Terezin Diary, a film about the WWII concentration camp Terezin, has been shown in theaters and festivals around the world and is in the permanent collection at the Terezin Memorial Site in the Czech Republic and the Arsenal Cinema in Berlin.
As photographer Mark Simon has worked on assignment in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for major international magazines such as Life, Time, Newsweek, the National Geographic Society, Geo, Stern, Granta, Art News, Smithsonian, as well as the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and Washington Post. He is represented by the Black Star Photo Agency in New York. Grants from Leica, the Goethe Institute, PPS in Hamburg, Pixel Grain in Berlin, and The Margaret Carter Foundation in New York have supported his work. His solo exhibitions, “Against the Other: Political and Religious Extremism” (1992-1998) and “Migration in Europe” (2000-2004), were shown by the Espaco-Memoria dos Exilios in Cascais, Portugal, and the Goethe Institutes in Istanbul, Lisbon, and Mannheim-Heidelberg. The Moses Mendelsohn Zentrum in Potsdam also exhibited another solo show in 2003, where he held a hands-on photography workshop with German students. Mark Simon's work has also traveled in group exhibitions with Nikon, Leica, Grun+Lahr, and with the Bertelsmann Foundation, as part of their book Toleranz and accompanying exhibition. His teaching experience includes photography seminars with teenagers in New York City, for exchange programs between students in Berlin and London, and various photography and journalism workshops. His cooperation with Lexia International began with studio visits in 2002, then expanded into teaching photography for the Research Methods Seminar.
Since 2005, Mark Simon has coordinated the film and video programming for Lexia International in Berlin, including special screenings and discussions with film makers at the Arsenal Cinema, supervising film and video projects, and developing additional opportunities for students to study and create film and video.
Prof. Wolfgang Wippermann (Freie Universität Berlin)
Wolfgang Wippermann combines excellence in scholarship, teaching, and civic activism. Professor of Modern History at the FU Berlin, he has also held visiting professorships at the Teachers College in Beijing (1987), Indiana University (1987/88), University of Minnesota (1990), and Duke University (1992). Among other awards, he was recipient of the "Förderpreis des Deutschen Hochschulverbandes" (1987). He also plays an active role in Berlin and German public culture, especially the public memory of the Holocaust, with frequent lectures, tours, and publications.
Wolfgang Wippermann studied history, German, and political science at the Universität Göttingen and Universität Marburg (M.A. 1975). He went on to earn his Ph.D. at the FU Berlin in 1975, where he also completed his Habilitation in 1978 and started as Assistant Professor of Modern History (Full Professor since 1984). In addition to a multitude of articles, essays, and edited volumes, he has also written the following books: Der Ordenstaat als Ideologie. Das Bild des Deutschen Ordens in der deutschen Ge¬schichtsschreibung und Publizistik (Berlin: Colloquium, 1979); Der "deut¬sche Drang nach Osten". Ideologie und Wirklichkeit eines politischen Schlagwor¬tes (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981); Die Bonapartismustheo¬rie von Marx und Engels (Stuttgart: Klett, 1983); Europäischer Faschismus im Vergleich (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1983); Das Leben in Frankfurt zur NS-Zeit I-IV (Frankfurt/M: Waldemar Kramer, 1986); Der konsequente Wahn. Ideologie und Politik Adolf Hitlers (Munich: Bertelsmann, 1989); Faschismustheorien. Zum Stand der gegenwärtigen Diskussion, fifth ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989); "Wie die Zigeuner". Antisemitismus und Antizi¬ganismus im Vergleich (Berlin: Elephanten, 1997); Wessen Schuld? Vom Hi¬torikerstreit zur Goldhagen-Kontroverse (Berlin: Elephanten, 1997); Umstrit¬tene Vergangenheit. Fakten und Kontroversen zum Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Ele¬phanten, 1998); Die Deutschen und ihre Hunde. Ein Sonderweg der Mentalitätsge¬schichte? (Berlin: Siedler, 1999). He leads tours to Buchenwald Memorial Site, where he serves on the Board of Directors. He teaches for the Lexia International Summer Program a course called: 'No Germans, no Holocaust'? The history of German Jews and anti-Semitism."
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