During our transnational seminar I went from a Luddite without a smartphone to the technological Vanguard. Minutes ago with the help of my Oculus virtual reality headset, I single-handedly saved the Earth from a meteor shower. You’re welcome. Yet, Randall Halle (2006) is dismissive of rapidly changing transformations in technological reproducibility of images, emphasizing instead changes in the marketability of film: “All due respect for the impact of computer-generated imagery on the visual arts aside, I would insist that…radical transformation in the productive forces come not from technological innovation” (Halle, 1). Benjamin Walter and I respectfully disagree with Randall Halle. Indeed, this seminar has broadened by appreciation for the semiotic power of rapidly changing technologies and the images that they produce and we, in turn, consume.

Halle discusses Walter Benjamin’s thesis “Das Kunstwerk zur Zeit der technischen Reproduzierbarkeit” (Art in the time of technical reproducibility). Benjamin’s thesis on reproducibility of art describes how art loses its creative Aura through technological reproduction, and discusses the evolution of the captured image from photography to film. Benjamin believed that technological reproducibility stripped the artwork of its patina, of its semiotic power, of its “Hier und Jetzt” (Here and Now-ness). Global access to audio-visual content, I believe, has largely anesthesized its viewing audiences, which Benjamin theorized could lead to an aesthetic politicization such as fascism.  I believe it is within these new ‘techno’- and cyberscapes that we come head-to-head with many of the theorists addressed in our seminar.

“[T]hen today education is the ultimate utopia” (Augé, X). Our transnational seminar has also opened my eyes to unequal access to educational opportunities. Among the list of audio-visual ‘goodies’ offered at McKeldin Library include: Oculus virtual reality headset, Google glasses, 3-D printer, and 3-D scanner. I have used all of them and have decided that these devices represent a new Frontera to which really only a privileged elite has access. The tuition-paying students and TA’s should count themselves among the fortunate few in a larger community of have’s and have-nots who can access these technologies. “This erasure of frontiers is brought to centre stage by audio-visual technology and the management of space. The spaces of circulation, consumption and communication are problem areas, ghettos, poverty and underdevelopment…” (Augé, XIII). It cost $17.92 to print the three items on McKeldin’s 3-D printer:

Object 2: My 3-D printed basket, large enough to fit a grilled cheese sandwich.

Object 3: Berlin’s Ampelmann (a bottle-opener)

This course has also fostered my sense of play. I enjoyed the experimental nature of this course and have overcome the corresponding fear of failure. I am excited about my ventures into the new technologies offered at McKeldin and am really optimistic about their accessibility to the student body and the potential to enhance students’ educational experiences. I think Appadurai’s emphasis on the role of the imagination is appropriate in relation to these gadgets.

Nevertheless, a chasm exists between UMD and the various communities in which it is nestled, both technologically and socially. A survey of campus culture shows how  “[w]alls, partitions, barriers are appearing on the local scale and in the most everyday management of space” (Augé, XIII). This transnational course has made me think long and hard about the purpose of and access to education, as well as the neoliberal trajectory that all educational institutions are taking. Only those who can contend with the rising costs of higher education and excessive UMD fees (late tuition finance charges, parking tickets, etc.) can occupy the privileged educational space at our public university.

This seminar has also showed me that the University of Maryland is as much of a non-space as an airport. As undergraduate and graduate students we wait in anticipation of attaining our credentials in order to take flight into the wider world. All the while we often breeze past janitors or conduct hasty transactions with the fast food workers in the Stamp. Anzaldua’s Frontera is readily apparent on our campus. It often seems like our student and faculty body form a community vantage point – albeit a global and diverse one – from which many people in UMD’s immediate environment are excluded.  What if Bhabha’s Beyond were staring at you from the other side of Panda Express?

Regarding Helene Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill, the first thing I noticed was the small blurb on the front cover, reading “The International Bestseller.” First and foremost, this note correlates to the idea of transnational literary production and reception, without having to read a word of the book’s interior.

In the interior of the novel, the reader discovers Hegemann’s ample use of worldwide pop culture references, highlighting her thought process (maybe even stream of consciousness) beginning early on in the text on page 5, describing her strange father as listening to depressing music. “The Melvins, Julie Driscoll, Neil Young – as if no one else made music apart from Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Every week he orders records for three hundred dollars” (5–6). Here the reader finds artists from various places (United States, England, and Canada), thus initiating ideas of the transnational. Assumedly readers from said regions would recognize the music stars from their respective homelands, and voila the importance of transnational literary reception is established. In another example, Ophelia engages Mifti in a conversation about the main character in a movie, something tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings (and others) discuss on a regular basis, at least in the States. “‘I used to be in love with the boy in The Never-Ending Story, shit, what was his name again?’” “‘Atreyu.’” “‘Yeah, and I’d still say that boy was my greatest boyfriend’” (39). Voila a reference that tens of thousands of readers would immediately acknowledge because they themselves once had similar conversations about that well-known movie.

I thought the inclusion of Germany’s Next Top Model (in the scene where Mifti visits Pörksen) was a brilliant move by Hegemann because the franchise of “Next Top Model” is global, not to mention known world-wide, from Israel to the United Kingdom. “Tina’s lying totally incapacitated in front of the TV, watching Germany’s Next Top Model and shouting…” (47). Girls around the world would recognize the show immediately upon reading the sentence.

In the following example, Hegemann’s music references serve as descriptions surrounding her depressed state of mind. For anyone who has ever felt sadness (assumedly most people), relating your feelings to a song can help others understand what you’re going to. You can never know what’s going on in someone’s head even if he/she presents their thoughts to you in diary form. You can only understand by an instance that happened to you or if the other person tries to explain his/her feelings to you using examples. So, naturally, Hegemann uses examples to convey her mood to the reader. “1. Music exists solely to preserve emotions. Karen Carpented and Richard Carpenter… 3. Van Morrison, Gloria, continuing hyperventilation and the memory of the phrase [that Edmond says]… ‘Patti Smith’s an old junkie – what is it with you and all these old women?’” (83).

When Hegemann inserts the names of “Madonna” and “Marlon Brando,” audiences reading the book world-wide would know exactly about whom she’s talking. Music icon and movie star legend, two celebrities lauded around the world for their respective art forms, from “En Vogue” to The Godfather. Hegemann strategically chooses these two stars to enhance the description of the tumultuous scene on page 125. “Through a swing door, we enter a wide corridor in which barred cages take the place of chandeliers. A selection of the most famous people in the world scream at us from the cages, in a language I’ve never heard before. Madonna is there and Marlon Brando…” (125). Had the author chosen different celebrities, the phrase of “a selection of the most famous people in the world” would have been rendered useless, seeing as the majority of her readership would not have understood the reference otherwise.

The last portion of text that I feel exemplifies the desire for a transnational literary production and its subsequent reception is again one that attempts to describe Mifti’s “ideal state of mind.” “The ideal state of mind is just sailing through all the crap, high on adrenalin, thinking, what I’d really like to do now is play the lead role in a video for Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, and anyway, woah, everything’s gone pear-shaped, look, the sun’s coming up” (127). Again, the reader cannot experience Mifti’s feelings exactly as she does; it’s impossible, seeing as they are separate beings; however, with the insertion of the Donna Summer video, once again the reader can potentially relate to how Mifti feels, if said reader knows the song.

I’d venture to guess that the original publishing company saw potential marketing expansion due to the numerous references and decided to translate it into English, effectively broadening the readership scope from a few countries to more or less a worldwide audience and realizing literary production that would become transnational literary production in the future. In general, the pop culture references serve as factors to which a person, in this case the reader (whether German, American, or British, etc.), can relate. Common characteristics or hobbies interlink people whether they’re from the same continent or not.