Tanja Dückers, born in 1968 in Berlin (west), is an author and publicist. She published 19 books; among her most important works are the novel “Spielzone,” “Himmelskörper,” “Der Längste Tag des Jahres” und “Hausers Zimmer,” the essay collection “Morgen nach Utopia,” the plays “Spielzone” and “Grüße aus Transnistrien” (world premiere at Berlin’s HAU II) as well as her volumes of poetry, among other “Fundbüro und Verstecke.” Most recently, her autobiographically tinted retrospect “Mein altes West-Berlin” as well as “Schoki Doki” (short stories) were published.
Collaboration with artists of various disciplines, composers, theater directors, painters, chocolatiers.

Tanja Dückers nationally and internationally expresses her opinion on topics of cultural and socio-political relevance, she writes for various newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations (Deutsche Welle, Tagesspiegel, ZEIT Online, Morgenpost, Berliner Zeitung, Süddeutsche, taz, Frankfurter Rundschau, Welt, Jungle World, Politik & Kultur, kulturaustausch, AI-Journal, RBB). She is part of Deutschlandfunks “Politisches Feuilleton” on a regular basis.

Tanja Dückers won numerous prizes and scholarships which brought her to New Hampshire (Dartmouth College), Pennsylvania (Allegheny College), Ohio (Miami University as well as Oberlin College), California (Villa Aurora), South Africa and to many other mostly middle and eastern European countries. She held writing workshops in Germany and internationally, for example in Romania, Belarus, Kenya and India. In 2022, she will be Max Kade fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Berlin-based writer Felicitas Hoppe was born in Hameln in 1960.

Her debut “Picknick der Friseure” was published in 1996, her novel “Pigafetta” followed in 1999 after taking a world trip on a freight ship, in 2003 “Paradiese, Übersee” was published, in 2004 “Verbrecher und Versager,” in 2006 “Johanna,” in 2009 “Iwein Löwenritter,” in 2009 “Sieben Schätze” and the story “Der beste Platz der Welt,” in 2010 “Abenteuer – was ist das?” in 2011 “Grünes Ei mit Speck,” a translation of  texts of the American children’s writer Dr. Seuss, in 2012 the novel “Hoppe,” in 2018 the novel “Prawda. Eine amerikanische Reise” and, most recently in 2021, “Die Nibelungen. Ein deutscher Stummfilm.” She has been awarded numerous prizes, amongst others the aspekte-Literaturpreis, the Bremer Literaturpreis, the Roswitha-Preis der Stadt Bad Gandersheim, the Rattenfänger-Literaturpreis, the Georg-Büchner-Preis and the Erich Kästner Preis für Literatur. Felicitas Hoppe is the first winner of the Große Preis des Deutschen Literaturfonds. She furthermore held poetics lecturing posts and was visiting professor in Wiesbaden, Mainz, Augsburg, Göttingen, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., in Hamburg, Heidelberg and Cologne.

Literary prizes (selected):

Foglio-Preis für junge Literatur (1995)
Aspekte-Literaturpreis (1996)
Ernst-Willner-Preis im Bachmann-Literaturwettbewerb (1996)
Rauriser Literaturpreis (1997)
Laurenz-Haus-Stiftung Basel (1998)
Niedersächsischer Förderpreis für Literatur (1999)
Spycher: Literaturpreis Leuk, Nicolas Born-Preis, Heimito von Doderer-Literaturpreis (alle 2004)
Brüder Grimm-Preis der Stadt Hanau (2005)
Bremer Literaturpreis (2007)
Roswitha-Preis der Stadt Bad Gandersheim (2007)
Rattenfänger-Literaturpreis (2010)
Preisträgerin des Comburg-Stipendiums (2010)
Villa Aurora (2012)
Georg-Büchner-Preis (2012)
Werner-Bergengruen-Preis (2015)
Erich Kästner Preis für Literatur (2015)
Ehrendoktorwürde der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (2016)
Großer Preis des Deutschen Literaturfonds (2020)
Kasseler Literaturpreis für grotesken Humor (2021)

http://www.felicitas-hoppe.de/

Annette Jael Lehmann-Kolesch has studied Comparative Literature, Art History, American Studies and Philosophy in Berlin, Oxford and Berkeley. In 1996, she received her PhD in comparative literature and aesthetics at the Freie Universität Berlin. Between 1995–1998,she was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Humanities Division of the University of California (UCLA), Adjunct Faculty Member at the School of Critical Studies, California Institutes of the Arts (CalArts), and Visiting Scholar at the School of Arts, Letters and Sciences at the University of Southern California (USC).Between 1999–2005, she was Research Assistant at the DFG-Collaborative Research Centre SFB 447: Kulturen des Performativen and obtained her Habilitation in Visual Culture at the Freie Universität Berlin (2005). During this time, she was also Executive Manager of the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Kunstwissenschaften und Ästhetik (2006). Between 2007–2019, she was Professor of Contemporary Art, Visual Culture and Theater at the Freie UniversitätBerlin. Since 2017, she is Principal Investigator (PI) at the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). In 2019 she became Principal Researcher (PR) at the Excellence Cluster ‘Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective’ at the Freie Universität Berlin and PI at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduierten Schule für Literaturwissenschaftliche Studien. Since fall 2019/20, she has been Professor and Head of the Seminar für Kultur-und Medienmanagementat Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, FU Berlin. She is an affiliate at metaLAB(at) Harvard/Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University. Since spring 2021 she is head of metaLAB (at) FU Berlin. Annette Jael Lehmann-Kolesch is married, has two children and lives in Berlin.

HONORS /AWARDS /FELLOWSHIPS

Fellowship, Literary Research Center Huntington Library, Pasadena, California, USA (1997)

Visiting Research Fellow, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, USA (2001)

Prize winner (1st place) of theJungen Akademie at the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, Deutschland (2003)

Visiting Fellow at Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, England (2004)

Mentee, ProFiL-Programm, Mentoring, Training, Networking, Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Humboldt Universität Berlin, Universität Potsdam, Germany; mentor: Prof. Monika Grütters (2005)

Senior Research and Teaching Stay at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Israel (2015)

Global Humanities Senior Fellow at Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (2016/17