Mithu Sanyal

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Mithu Sanyal

Mithu Melanie Sanyal (* 1971 in Düsseldorf-Oberbilk ) is a German cultural scientist , journalist and author . Her main topics are pop culture , post-colonialism and feminism .

Life

Mithu Sanyal was born in 1971 in Düsseldorf to a Polish mother and an Indian father. She studied German and English literature at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and did her doctorate on the cultural history of the female genitals . The book Vulva emerged from her doctoral thesis in 2009 . The unveiling of the invisible gender , which is considered pioneering work on the subject and has been discussed in many media.

Mithu Sanyal has been a permanent writer for WDR since 1996, making features and radio plays for them. She also writes for NDR , BR , Frankfurter Rundschau , Literatures , taz , Junge Welt , SPEX , the Federal Agency for Civic Education, etc. and was a volunteer editor for the feminist magazine Wir Frauen . Since the publication of her second book, Rape , Sanyal has often been invited to contributions, readings, lectures, public discussions and on television as an expert, lecturer, moderator, conversation partner and studio guest.

Awards

For her radio reports on the cultural history of reading she was awarded the Dietrich Oppenberg Media Prize of the Reading Foundation three times . For her analysis, rape. Aspects of a Crime , Sanyal was awarded the special prize in 2017 as part of the Humanities International program.

Publications

Books

Radio plays

Articles in newspapers and magazines

controversy

On February 17, 2017, the article “ You Victim ” by Mithu Sanyal and the journalist Marie Albrecht caused a sensation in the daily newspaper (taz) . The background to this was that Sanyal was asked by those affected at a reading in the taz café in Berlin on February 1, 2017 not to use the term “victim” because they felt they had been pigeonholed. A similar discussion started in America in the 1990s in the feminist scene with the result that the term “survivor” was coined, or “survivor” in German. But not all rape is life-threatening. So how about - suggested the women in the taz café - to leave out the prefix “about” and replace it with “he”: “Experienced sexual violence”? Sanyal and Albrecht presented this term in the taz on February 17, 2017, with the specific reference that this term should not replace the word “victim”, to which legal rights are bound; it would only be about another possibility of self-designation.

The feminist blog “The Troublemakers” then wrote an open letter in which they accused Sanyal of playing down sexualized violence. They did not send this letter to Sanyal, but to all the editorial offices she works for. As a result, the feminist monthly magazine Emma ran the headline on February 21, 2017: “Victims should no longer be called victims” . Numerous fake news websites such as halle-leaks copied Sanyal's photo from Emma and wrote under it: “Do-gooder advises victims: Rape can also be an experience. Have fun! ”Or similar distortions of your statement. The reasoning was that since Sanyal comes from a country where rape is legal (her father comes from India, where rape is very much a criminal offense), she would recommend that German women allow themselves to be rape by refugees. The right-wing website Philosophia Perennis ended their February 23 article with “Welcome to Rapefugeestan” , others with Sanyal's address or phone number or a link to Emma . The AfD Saxony criticized Sanyal with the same words as the troublemakers. The result of this was a shit storm in which Sanyal received hundreds of emails with rape and death threats.

Sanyal's suggested language was widely discussed in the German media, from negative articles such as “The Rape Experience” by Ursula Scheer on February 24, 2017 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to very personal and positive articles such as “Violence without a Name” by Marion Detjen in Die As of February 27, 2017. Sanyal was widely defended by other feminist blogs. Hannah C. wrote in the girls' team on February 21, 2017 : “Mithu M. Sanyal, cultural scientist and author, dared to do something, and hardly anyone noticed. She spoke to people who are called victims and brought their desire for self-determination about the name into the press and thus the discourse itself ”. Hundreds of people wrote Sanyal e-mails in solidarity and campaigned for her online and offline. On March 3, 2017, Mithu Sanyal said in the program Kultur heute on Deutschlandfunk: “In addition to the Hatestorm, there was really a Lovestorm”. In July 2019, the research and fact check portal Correctiv published its analysis under the title No, Mithu Sanyal did not advise victims that rape could "also be experienced" .

Web links

Commons : Mithu Sanyal  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. a b Dr. Mithu Sanyal - Vita (Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive)
  2. Mithu Sanyal at SPEX , accessed on July 28, 2020
  3. The first female chancellor. Is it now equality? , Federal Agency for Civic Education, November 12, 2018, accessed on July 28, 2020
  4. Municipal cinema Freiburg: Mithu Sanyal speaks today about the deep grammar of sexual violence, March 12, 2019
  5. ^ Allegations against Asia Argento: "A person cannot discredit a movement". Mithu Sanyal in conversation with Marietta Schwarz, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 23 August 2018
  6. German Women's Council: Mithu M. Sanyal, video from January 16, 2019
  7. WDR radio: "Your home is our nightmare", conversation with Mithu Sanyal, WDR 3 Kultur am Mittag, February 21, 2019
  8. The Purple Podcast. Several rounds of talks with Mithu Sanyal, 2017-2019
  9. ^ Heinrich Böll Foundation, Gunda Werner Institute: All contributions by Mithu Sanyal, 2017-2018
  10. Literary Center Göttingen in cooperation with the 10th European Feminist Research Conference 2018 and the Department of Culture of the City of Göttingen: Mithu Sanyal in conversation with Svenja Flaßpöhler, 2018
  11. Special price for Mithu Sanyal , boersenblatt.net, October 4, 2017, accessed on October 4, 2017.
  12. Christiane Florin : Narrative of violence: About the cultural history of rape. In: deutschlandfunk.de , Andruck - The magazine for political literature. November 21, 2016. (November 24, 2016)
  13. Rape. From Lucretia to #MeToo , by Mithu Sanyal, Verso Books, 2019
  14. WDR 3, radio play Post Porn Panik accessed on July 28, 2020
  15. ^ The Guardian, Profile of Mithu Sanyal
  16. Mithu Sanyal, Marie Albrecht: Description of sexual violence: You victim! In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 13, 2017, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed March 29, 2019]).
  17. The Troublemakers: Open letter against linguistic trivialization of sexual violence. In: The Troublemakers. February 18, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2019 (German).
  18. Victims should no longer be called victims. In: EMMA. February 21, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  19. a b Do-gooder thinks victims of rape should be more experienced. In: halle-leaks.de blog. February 22, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2019 (German).
  20. David Berger: Incredible: From now on, victims of rape should be called "experiencing". In: Philosophia Perennis. February 23, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2019 (German).
  21. AfD Saxony: AfD Saxony: no glossing over sexual crimes! In: AfD Saxony. February 24, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  22. Katrin Gottschalk: Description of sexualized violence: Debate instead of agitation . In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 25, 2017, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed March 29, 2019]).
  23. Ursula Scheer: Crime and Language: The Rape Experience? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 24, 2017, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 29, 2019]).
  24. Marion Detjen: Rape: violence without a name . In: The time . February 27, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 29, 2019]).
  25. Hannah C .: Opfer_Diskurs - time for courage to change perspective! In: girls team. February 21, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2019 (German).
  26. Mascha Drost: cultural scientist Mithu Sanyal - "The supermarket saleswoman feels not represented by mainstream feminism". March 3, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2019 (German).
  27. Corrective: No, Mithu Sanyal did not advise victims that rape could "also be experienced"