Alexander Cocotas
@acocotas
I write and edit. My work has appeared in @awl, @newinquiry, @jacobinmag, @parisreview, @lareviewofbooks, and @qz, among others. acocotas [at] gmail [dot] com
For the @guardian, I wrote about the reality of abortion in Poland, before and after last year’s protests: theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/…. Thank you to the @pulitzercenter for the support.
An EU official recently slammed bake sale fundraisers for Gaza as “ambient anti-semitism.” Last year, @acocotas explained how Germans like Katharina von Schnurbein try to strengthen their identity by throwing their weight behind Israel. thebaffler.com/latest/how-ger…
A play I co-wrote, Die Hölle ist leer (Hell is empty), is having its premiere in Berlin this weekend. A surreal, outrageous critique of German memory culture, you won’t want to miss it. March 22-25, in German with English translation. Tickets here: hfs-berlin.de/aktuelles/vera…
Berlin’s future as a freak-flag-waving cultural powerhouse is under threat. For that, you can thank rising rents, budget cuts, and skittish censors. @acocotas considers what the future could hold for Germany’s most un-German city. thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
For the excellent new issue of @thebafflermag I wrote about hackneyed depictions of Berlin in recent literature, the contemporary suppression of speech around Palestine, and how both are situated in Berlin’s lengthy normalization as a German city thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
A wonderful counter to the glib cliched pieces that have appeared in the Guardian now for decades....interesting so few write about older people like myself been here on and off since 1979...also for dissident images see Ottinger's Berlin trilogy
My latest essay for @thebafflermag, which elaborates and expands on the piece I wrote about Jews in Germany for the magazine last year, via a number of woeful depictions of Berlin in recent Anglophone literature thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
Alex Cocotas telling it like it is.
For the latest issue of @thebafflermag, I wrote about ketamine realism, faltering democracy, extraterritoriality, censorship in the arts, and the town that ties it all together, my Wahlheimat, the lovely, miserable, great city of Berlin thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
the berlin piece is my favorite so far; it goes after contemporary novelists of the city for comparing their boring navel-gazey lives to weimar and defends arab immigration for injecting the kind of cultural life that has been part of its DNA into the city thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
"Efforts to protect freedom of expression have largely been led by expats, migrants, and other loathsomely disengaged cosmopolitans. German intellectuals, by and large, have packed their bags for another “inner emigration.”"
For the latest issue of @thebafflermag, I wrote about ketamine realism, faltering democracy, extraterritoriality, censorship in the arts, and the town that ties it all together, my Wahlheimat, the lovely, miserable, great city of Berlin thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
Excellent piece on the mess that is Berlin today
For the latest issue of @thebafflermag, I wrote about ketamine realism, faltering democracy, extraterritoriality, censorship in the arts, and the town that ties it all together, my Wahlheimat, the lovely, miserable, great city of Berlin thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
Absolutely brilliant, as to be expected from @acocotas - Do tell if the informant woman who invited you to dinner was Annetta ? I’m dying to know
For the latest issue of @thebafflermag, I wrote about ketamine realism, faltering democracy, extraterritoriality, censorship in the arts, and the town that ties it all together, my Wahlheimat, the lovely, miserable, great city of Berlin thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
Another outstanding essay, which I loved, ft. godawful gentile behavior, which I hated. Girl, you can't compare your vagina to Auschwitz!!
My latest essay for @thebafflermag, which elaborates and expands on the piece I wrote about Jews in Germany for the magazine last year, via a number of woeful depictions of Berlin in recent Anglophone literature thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
I got to the end of latest Baffler (no. 77) and squealed w glee. Another Berlin Cocotas Delight!
Berlin looms large in the fecund imaginations of the international Anglophone creative class, so in our new issue, @acocotas examines the microgenre of expat Berliterature. thebaffler.com/salvos/breakin…
I got to the end of latest Baffler (no. 77) and squealed w glee. Another Berlin Cocotas Delight!
Unfortunately it seems that essay has disappeared from the Internet, but I have something big about Berlin and it's scenes coming out in January...
Earlier this year I wrote about Germany's disturbing relationship with Jews for @thebafflermag. In light of the "Antisemitismus Resolution" passed last week, it seems I can now be labeled an antisemite by the country that murdered most of my family. thebaffler.com/latest/how-ger…
The German parliament has passed a resolution that would withdraw public funding from groups that “spread anti-Semitism”—by which they mean “criticize Israel.” @acocotas condemned the deep hypocrisy underlying Germany’s pathologized guilt. thebaffler.com/latest/how-ger…
In 2017, this man — an undocumented Uyghur refugee named Hasan Imam — planned and executed a daring escape from a Thai detention center, digging through the wall of his compound with a rusty nail.