Tobe Levin

Tobe Levin (2017)

Tobe Levin (* as Tobe Levin Baroness von Gleichen on February 16, 1948 in Long Branch, New Jersey ) is an American literary scholar and activist against female genital mutilation (FGM).

Education and career

Levin was born in Long Branch, NJ, to Morris William Levin and Janice Metz Levin.

In 1970 she obtained her Bachelor of Arts in English from Ithaca College (NY) with “summa cum laude”. Three years later she graduated from the New York University Paris and the University Paris III with a Master of Arts in French. Her master's thesis dealt with the images of women in Rousseau and Diderot and was an early example of feminist literary criticism .

In 1973 she enrolled as a PhD student at Cornell University . During a research stay in Munich , she first found out about female genital mutilation from Alice Schwarzer's feminist magazine EMMA and took part in the German campaign to combat FGM.

In 1979 she received her doctorate in comparative literature from Cornell University with a dissertation on ideology and aesthetics in neo-feminist German fictional literature: Verena Stefan , Elfriede Jelinek and Margot Schroeder . She was the first female scientist whose doctoral thesis dealt with Elfriede Jellinek, the 2004 Nobel Prize winner for literature .

Commitment against genital mutilation

In June 1977 the EMMA published an article entitled “ Clitoral Circumcision ”. After sacks of dismayed letters from the editor reached the editors, the editors decided to organize action groups in all major West German cities. Alice Schwarzer, the editor-in-chief, transferred the national coordination to Levin's group in Munich. In 1979 Levin published together with other authors the first guide for "Action Groups Against Clitoral Circumcision".

This early work led to collaborations with leading European personalities who were involved in the fight against FGM, above all Awa Thiam in Paris and Efua Dorkenoo OBE , who founded the organization FORWARD in Great Britain and supported the development of the “little German sister”.

In 1998 Levin founded together with others FORWARD-Germany e. V., a non-profit organization that set out to fight in Germany with the aim of outlawing FGM worldwide. FORWARD soon entered into cooperations with like-minded organizations that deal with the increasing immigration from Africa to Germany. A significant proportion of this immigration occurred as a result of the state collapse and the subsequent civil war in Somalia . Today FORWARD works closely with government agencies, e. B. with municipal women's representatives and with federal authorities responsible for immigration, development and health. FORWARD also works with the largest NGO for African women in Germany, MAISHA, and many other associations in INTEGRA , an umbrella organization for German NGOs against FGM.

In 2002 Levin accepted the Ingrid zu Solms Foundation Prize for Human Rights and International Understanding for FORWARD .

In 2005 she received the Olympe de Gouges Prize awarded by the SPD for her Somalia girl project.

other activities

In 2014 Levin joined the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). The WIFP is an American non-profit press organization that aims to increase communication between women and establish women's media in public discussion.

Tobe Levin is CEO of the Frankfurt-based publisher UnCUT / VOICES Press, which is the only publisher in the world that exclusively publishes books on female genital mutilation.

Levin wrote a widely acclaimed book about the American author Alice Walker and her use against FGM.

In 2015, a study on FGM in East Africa, Kiminta , was published in cooperation with Maria Kiminta and the photographer Britta Radike. A Maasai's Fight against Female Genital Mutilation.

Levin also spoke out against circumcision in boys.

Working life

In 1979 Levin became a faculty member at the University of Maryland College in Europe, teaching English and women's studies to US military personnel . In 1985 she was given a teaching position at the Goethe University in Frankfurt , where, in addition to her FGM focus, she also held courses on Afro-Jewish women writers in Germany for the first time.

In 2002 she received the Presidential Award from the University of Maryland University College for excellence in teaching.

In 2004 she went to the institute for “Women's Studies Research” at Mount Holyoke College for the first time .

She did research at Brandeis University (2006), Cornell University (2010), and the "International Women's Studies" at the Lady Margaret Hall of the University of Oxford (2014).

Since 2006, she also worked at Harvard University's WEB Du Bois Institute for African-American Research.

Levin is a visiting lecturer at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University . She is visiting professor at the International Gender Studies Center, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. She has now retired as professor of English at the University of Maryland , University College.

literature

• Feminist Europe Review of Books , German Foundation for Women and Gender Studies in Heidelberg (ed.), Ddv-verlag, Heidelberg, 1998–2010
• together with Augustine H. Asaah (Ed.) Empathy and Rage. Female Genital Mutilation in African Literature , Oxfordshire: Ayebia, 2009.
• Waging empathy. Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and the Global Movement to Ban FGM. , Tobe Levin (Ed.), Frankfurt: UnCUT / VOICES Press, 2014
• together with Maria Kiminta. A Maasai's Fight against Female Genital Mutilation. Frankfurt: UnCUT / VOICES Press, 2015.
• Blood stains: a child of Africa reclaims her human rights / Khady together with Marie-Thérèse Cuny. Translation by Tobe Levin, Frankfurt, M.: UnCut / Voices Press, 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813863-0-1

Web links

• Lecture by Tobe Levin at the scientific symposium of the University of Cologne on May 6, 2014
• Web presence of the publisher UnCut / Voices Press

Individual evidence

1. ^ Love, Barbara J., ed. Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
2. ^ Undergraduate Faculty Listing , University of Maryland University College Park website. Retrieved March 16, 2014
3. ↑ Levin, Tobe. "Welcome and Editorial." Feminist Europe. Review of Books. Vol. 9, No 1, 2009; Vol. 10, No 1, 2010; Pp. 9-10. Retrieved March 16, 2014
4. ^ Profiles: Dr. Tobe Levin von Gleichen , Jessie Obidiegwu Education Fund. Retrieved March 16, 2014
5. ↑ Ingrid Braun, Tobe Levin and Angelika Schwarzbauer (eds.) Materials to support action groups against clitoral circumcision. Munich: Verlag Frauenoffensive, 1979.
6. ^ Marion Hulverscheidt: Health Rights or Human Rights? in: Alex Mold, David Reu (Eds.): Assembling Health Rights in Global Context , Routledge 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-53011-8
7. ^ FORWARD-Germany e. V. website: www.forward-deutschland.de ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ http://www.maisha.org/
9. ^ Ingrid zu Solms Foundation website: www.ingrid-zu-solms-stiftung.de
10. ↑ Associates | The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press ( en )
11. ^ Alice Walker The official website .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Video on YouTube
13. ↑ "Three UMUC Employees Receive Presidential Award." Achiever: The Alumni Magazine of the University of Maryland University College. Spring 2003. p. 4
14. ^ "Five Colleges Alumni and Associates Directory"
15. ^ Tobe Levin Wins Prestigious USM Board of Regents' Faculty Award . University of Maryland. Retrieved March 10, 2014.