Voids

+ Lost in the void – a close reading of Franny in “Franny and Zooey” / Charlotte Ullrich, Freitag, 23. Januar 2026, 13:45 / Franny, a young university student, sits in a restaurant with her boyfriend Lane. They talk as usual about their studies but Franny is off that particular day. Lecturers she previously adored and respected are a sudden sore in her eye. She questions their true artistic genius in making her feel through their work and make her see the beauty in the world she thinks poetry should reveal. Lane who is used to Franny being a passionate student tries to understand her newfound criticism but fails to do so. Franny tries to stay calm and agreeable in order to not spoil their time but can’t get out of her spiralling head. / Political reading: / Franny is a smart and educated young woman who had all paths open to her. But plagued by her older brothers “educational experiments” she was submitted to at an early age and a certain book on finding true meaning she discovered in her deceased Brothers room she is now spiralling. Questioning the great thinkers she used to look up to and not being able to see the world through the same lense traditional academics teach. The words of great poets seem shallow and uninspired to her with one exception. In an earlier letter to Lane she writes “I think I’m beginning to look down on all poets except Sappho.” Lane seems to actually try to see where Franny is coming from in all of that but can’t seem to get her point of view. As their argument continues and Franny behaves more and more unusual, until she excuses herself to the bathroom where she experiences a panic attack and shortly after collapses, Lane seems to be more occupied in the optics this scene has for his own image among his social circle than Frannys wellbeing. To have a beautiful, smart and well educated girlfriend only seems to do good for him as long as she stays in the narrow space preserved for women like her in society. / Even though as we see in the rest of the book Franny doesn’t put her peculiar mood in direct connection to her being a woman in the world and lacking a way of expressing her emotions due to the patriarchal structure she finds herself in it seems to me that this at least plays partly a role. She finds herself in a void of experience where she cannot connect to the written word of men anymore and lacks the vocabulary to describe her mental state, this feeling of nothing actually mattering and everybody is just performing their assigned roles. That perhaps this void she is stuck in is the same one the lecturers of the book shop talked about came to me only after rereading the book after. When she seems to connect so wholeheartedly to the ancient words of Sappho but can’t do the same anymore to the men of her time trying to educate her in what poetry is supposed to look and feel like is when I questioned if Frannys problem is solely her being overeducated and lacking meaning in what she does or if perhaps she lacks the words to describe her place and bond with other women in a way that makes her feel understood. Even at the end of the book there is no real escape from her mind but what seems to be a comfort. She may be stuck in the void but maybe by getting comfortable there she can find a way to fill it herself. / I enjoyed doing this close reading on a text that I have read several times before with the discussions and inputs we got from the seminar in the back of my mind. It offered me new approaches on the material and the characters that are already dear to my heart.

+ „Alchemised „by SenLinYu / Liliana Novak, Donnerstag, 22. Januar 2026, 15:25: / Why I chose „Alchemised“ / I chose „Alchemised„from SenLinYu because it shows war from a very different view than most of the books I have read. Instead of focusing mainly on the soldiers and the battle itself, it deals with what happens afterwards and how people, especially women, deal with trauma and how their lives are changed forever. I found this approach really shocking and fascinating at the same time. Before I read this book, I never really thought about the role of women in war, how it affected them. Furthermore, it also made me realise history often tends to forget about this important topic, and it reminded me that the jobs women did during war time is often erased. Political Reading / The book has a really strong political message. It shows how war is not just about the fight itself, but also about power and control. Those in charge and the winners are usually the ones who have the privilege to write history and tell whatever they wish. In the book, the official version (which is later told to the people) of the war is different from the actual events, and they tell lies regarding the main character, Helena Marino. During the war, she was working as a healer, and later on, she was given the task of also doing some spying. However, this part later on will be forgotten about her, and in the official documents, next to her name, it will be mentioned that she wasn’t fighting in the war. / Where the void opens / In my opinion, the “void” in „Alchemised“ is the emptiness caused by loss and forgetting. The void shows up when Helena loses her memory and sense of self. She cannot remember who she is or what happened to her, which leaves an empty space inside her where her past should be. The void is also present in the hospital scenes, where pain and suffering seem endless. In the hospital, there is no clear victory, only ongoing loss. This makes the void feel even deeper because the world does not recognize or remember the suffering. As I said earlier, the void is also created by the erasure of women’s experiences. So with that in mind, the book suggests that society often forgets the role women play in war, and this makes their suffering feel invisible. / In the end, „Alchemised“ shows that war does not end when the fighting stops and the “peaceful” times finally come. The real struggle and challenge continue in people’s minds and in the empty spaces left behind where their jobs are not recognised. The void is the missing part of history, which is not told, and the book suggests that healing can only start when that void is filled with truth and memory.

+ “ The Summer Without Men“ von Siri Hustvedt / Celina Aßmann, Sonntag, 18. Januar 2026, 22:00: / The Echo of the Pause: When the Void Becomes a Home / It begins with a word as innocuous as it is annihilating: „pause.“ When Boris, the gravitational centre of Mia’s existence, utters this syllable, he does not merely hit a button to halt the film of their shared life; he tears the very screen to shreds. In that instant, what the women of the Libreria delle donne reverently call “the void“ opens wide: a bottomless abyss in which every role – wife, lover, anchor – suddenly loses its gravity. „I crackled and then I broke,“ Mia confesses. It is a void that aches, screams, and terrorizes – yet it is precisely here, within this rupture of narrative, that the real work begins. The absence of the male gaze creates a monstrously free space, a silence in which one’s own echo is, for the first time, returned undistorted. / To read this novel politically is to realise that this fall is no accident; it is the brutal, necessary birth of a new visibility. Hustvedt’s work is not a record of failure, but a handbook for the radical re-creation of identity. To plunge into the void is to lose one’s footing, only to gain the horizon. / In the shimmering heat of her hometown, the „pause“ becomes a vessel of transformation. Here, the void begins to speak. It is filled not with the noise of new distractions, but with the whispers of a female genealogy that catches Mia like an invisible safety net. The Five Swans in the nursing home are no mere scenery of decay; they are the living memory of female resistance. Their book club is not a polite literary diversion but a shared practice through which memory, irony, and experience circulate. In reading „Persuasion“ together, they quietly undermine a regime of truth measured elsewhere and assert a form of female authority grounded in continuity and recognition. This precedent of strength grants Mia permission to take up her pen and reclaim her own story, far beyond the „pity of the abandoned wife.“ / This same act of becoming is mirrored in the „Coven,“ the writing class of young girls. The blank page is the ultimate void. Mia teaches them not to fear this vacuum but to use it as a scalpel to cut through the hardened crusts of their social roles. By stepping into the skin of another through language, they find an empathy for one another and a power that exists entirely outside of male admiration or rejection. / Finally, there is Lola, the young and struggling neighbour. In her relationship with Mia, the void becomes a bridge. Through the act of entrustment, Lola finds the words for her own experience. She uses Mia’s authority not to diminish herself, but to lever herself upwards – to claim the vocabulary for a reality she had previously only endured but never named. Mia serves as the horizon against which Lola can finally measure her own freedom. / By the end of this summer, the semantics of the „pause“ have been radically transformed. The void is no longer a site of lack; it is the space in which Mia has learned to navigate the world without the crutch of male validation. The title of the novel reveals itself as a brilliant feint: it is not a summer of „without“, but a summer of fullness. Mia does not simply return to Boris or turn away; she steps into a reality whose measures she holds herself. She has inhabited the void with the voices, the stories, and the irrepressible strength of women. / Ultimately, this novel effects a liberating shift in my own perception: to perceive the „pause“ not as a standstill, but as the only place where true autonomy can be born – challenging me to endure emptiness until, in the silence, I can finally hear my own unadulterated voice.

+ Christa Wolf’s „Medea“ /  Anna Larice,  Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 18:21: / The narration by Christa Wolf of the tale of Medea is incredibly telling of patriarchal society. It shows the life of Medea through her thoughts and those of whom she is surrounded by, giving voice to conceptions, misconceptions and prejudices of each character. / Medea, a foreigner in Chorinto, is perceived by most as a mysterious and unreliable figure, barbaric and with evil intentions, but when we listen to her perspective, we can see how all these claims have no foundation. Being a foreigner here relates not only to moving beyond the borders of our country of origin, but also to the condition women live everyday in a world that was not shaped to satisfy their needs nor to allow them to fully develop themselves. / The book also touches upon the transformative relationships between Medea and the other women in the story: her mother Idia, her handmaid Neride, the queen of Chorinto Merope and Merope’s daughter Glauce. The relationship of genuine entrustment between Glauce and the protagonist is seen by all under a bad lighting, especially in regards to Medea’s healing practices towards the ill girl which seem to help her as nothing else can. These practices, other than medical methods, concern listening to innermost feelings and thoughts, even when the outside world disregards them as futile and wrong and doesn’t give them any space. / Another important topic addressed in the text is the stigma against women used by their partners and society in order to keep them into the place designated for them and not make them emancipate themselves, especially in regards to their actions, behaviours and “failings” as mothers. / In the tale, Medea seems the only one really able to understand the suffering of the women and the underlying dynamics of the power-structure of the city. When she tries to change them to help people live more freely, though, she is labeled as an agitator, against whom the whole society responds. / The reason why I chose this particular text to work upon is because it clearly states how narration drastically changes the conception of reality; Wolf, in fact, doesn’t use Euripide’s writings as a foundation for her text, rather, she searches for previous sources which tell a very different story. The emotional, crazy and hysterical woman who decides to kill her own children actually turns out to be intelligent, independent and courageous in her efforts to change her reality by rebelling with care and strength. In the end, it is the society itself which is emotional and crazy, and participates with brutal violence in acts of mass hysteria, naming  them as normal. / This retelling of the story is a clearly important political act: it shows a real understanding of the power structures that lie behind literature and the impact they create. At the same time it offers another way of reading the reality we are presented with. It is interesting, in my view, to notice how Christa is actually Medea too, able to find traces of unfairness even in commonly overlooked settings and to transform the account we can take from them in a revolutionary way. / After reading this book, I felt understood in my feeling of not being understood at all times by the world and the people around me and being labeled as too emotional, hysteric and irrational, over things that were actually important. / The shift that this book brought in me, though, was much bigger. It made me think if I had too, in times, judged other women as having exaggerated, while I wasn’t able to see the burden they had to carry in order for everything else to run smoothly. It made me wonder whether the expectations in their regards, both relational and systemic, weren’t what was crushing them down. / Even though Medea’s story ends in tragedy, it reminds us to critically analyse a situation, under different points of view, not least the systemic one, before giving our judgement. / Wolf’s narration also empowers us; Medea is not a victim: she decides for herself until the end and shows an image of strength and dignity, trying until the very last moment to fight for what she believes in. This gives me, and I think it should give all of us the courage and hope to all be Medeas.

+ “ The Handmaid’s Tale“ by Margeret Atwood / Sarah Riller, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 17:08: / “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood is a novel that is focused of female oppression. In the sense of a political reading, there are two chapters opening some kind of void. In Chapter 27, Ofglen dares to ask Offred about whether she thinks God is actually listening to anything the regime offers up in terms of religion. Against her trained instincts to view such utterances as treason, Offred negates the question. They start talking about that faith, and Ofglen ends up inviting Offred to join “us,” some kind of rebellion Offred suspected existed. In Chapter 43, the Handmaids are allowed a temporary use of free will regarding the treatment of a man who has been convicted of rape. Offred, and as later turns out Ofglen as well, know the man did not commit any crime. Because of that, Ofglen knocked him out to keep him from feeling the pain of the on-going torture by the other Handmaids, and Offred does not act at all. / The relations of the women in these passages are quite complex. There are the Handmaids as a whole, being connected s a collective because they are Handmaids and treated as such, nothing more and nothing less. Additionally, there is the Handmaids’ relation to Aunt Lydia, which is explicitly hierarchic because Aunt Lydia holds the power by telling the Handmaids what to do and them following. The relation between the Handmaids and the present Daughters and Wives is a similar one, as them watching compels the Handmaids to do what they were told even more effectively, fearing the consequences otherwise. Janine and Offred have a brief encounter, showing they do have a certain relation by being Handmaids but also depicting their carelessness towards the other, leaving either of them to fare on their own. Ofglen and Offred, on the other hand, are evidently allied, looking out for each other. / The authorisations, or rather what became possible, are that Ofglen and Offred agree on being tricked and controlled by the regime, and them secretly trying to counteract the regime’s doing. This can especially be seen in Ofglen knocking out the falsely accused man to spare him his pain, and then calming Offred by reassuring her they are still on the same side and agree in their opinions. Offred not s secretly refuses to move and do anything to the man, which Ofglen then follows by reminding her the Daughters and Wives are watching and she is being too obvious. Therefore, Ofglen is trying to protect her and looking out for her, showing and proving their alliance. / What these passages did to me is not easily put into words. Almost all of it triggered rather emotional reactions. A lot of it, like the regime altogether, the scheming control it holds over the women and the women going along with it, made me angry and sad. What did give me hope was Ofglen and Offred’s alliance. It was relieving to see some hope left and the rebellion not leaving them yet. A certain kind of satisfaction was triggered when the Handmaids used their free will to express their rage, although it was misplaced with the innocent man. Generally, women acting upon their own will, especially when against a regime like this, I feel satisfaction and pride. The dark reality presented here also made me sad, and so did the detachment the Handmaids seem to feel towards one another. / I chose this text because of the clear oppression of females, even supported by females themselves. Seeing how this kind of dystopian regime would affect female relationships was interesting to me in context of a political reading.

+  Margaret Atwood – „The Handmaid’s Tale“ / Emma Werner, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 17:00: / Margaret Atwood’s „The Handmaid’s Tale“ is a compelling choice for a political reading on female solidarity because it portrays rebellion not as a coherent movement, but as something that emerges from a void: a space left by broken relationships, silenced language, and the systematic destruction of trust among women. Rather than offering clear models of collective resistance, the novel dwells on uncertainty, hesitation, and disbelief, revealing how solidarity begins precisely where certainty is impossible. /Gilead produces this void by reorganizing women’s relationships into rigid, hierarchical roles that discourage identification and mutual recognition. Handmaids, Wives, Marthas, and Aunts are positioned in ways that make solidarity structurally difficult, replacing shared experience with suspicion and competition. As a result, rebellion cannot take the form of open collective action; it survives instead as rumor, whisper, and momentary alignment. This is evident when Ofglen tells Offred about Mayday, an underground organization that resists the regime. Offred reflects: “I find it hard to believe in these whisperings, these revelations, though I always do at the time.” (Atwood, 1998, p. 202) The sentence captures the paradox of resistance in Gilead: it exists, but only fleetingly, only in moments when belief briefly fills the emptiness imposed by fear. / This hesitation does not weaken the political force of the novel, it intensifies it. Atwood suggests that rebellion under totalitarian control is not sustained by confidence but by need, the need to imagine connection where none is guaranteed. Female solidarity here is not a stable bond but an interruption of isolation, fragile enough to vanish as soon as it is named. Offred’s disbelief underscores how deeply the regime has succeeded in eroding trust, making even the possibility of collective resistance feel unreal. / As a reader, this produces in me a shift from expecting rebellion to be visible and organized to recognizing how political action can begin in uncertainty, in disbelief, and in the desperate desire for connection within a void. This shift asks me to reconsider solidarity not as a condition for resistance, but as something that resistance itself must struggle to invent. / By choosing „The Handmaid’s Tale“, we are reminded that the most radical threat to oppressive systems may not be overt defiance, but the fragile, temporary belief that one is not alone, even when that belief is difficult to sustain.

+ „Fledgling „by Octavia E. Butler / Alessa Marie Frida Zarbock ,Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:50: / Why I chose it: / I had to read it for a different seminar, and it really stuck with me, so I wanted to work with it again in some capacity and this was a good opportunity to do that. / I like that sometimes when authors introduce fantastical or other supernatural ideas to a book, it feels further from reality but at the same time opens a whole new area of finding parallels to your own life and reality and how the story on the book and your own compare. In a way, the distance it creates makes it easier to understand your own situation. / Also, I really like vampires and how Butler flipped the classic vampire-trope on its head 🙂 / Political reading: / The book uses vampire fiction as a metaphor for systems of power, identity and community. It deals with many different and difficult topics such as race, law, community, consent and justice. / Shori, the main character, is a genetically modified black vampire, which challenges the idea of the classic pale white vampire allergic to the sun. Her melanin (a human trait instead of a vampire one) lets her exist in the sun without it hurting her, which makes her a target of conservative vampires that see this trait as „contaminated“, a clear parallel to racism. / The vampires in the story have a supposedly „consenting blood bond“ with the humans in their community, which is at the core of the book: vampires receive blood, humans get a longer life. This seems easy, is a lot more complicated and creates an interesting line between consent and coercive control or asymmetrical power. / The book builds up to a legal trial, where Shori forces the vampires to exercise their own rights against them.  She creates systemic change from within. / The book critiques purist ideologies and explores the ethics of power and consent while imagining how to build communities based on mutual need and respect across differences, which are important and difficult themes to write about. / Passage where a void opens: / The moment in the cave after Shori awakens, right at the beginning of the book. She wakes in the dark and without memories and is found by a human. Even as a reader, you can feel the darkness where she wakes up and the confusion she feels, you know as much as her about the book/world you are about to dive into. Shori, in that moment, is not a powerful vampire, but a fearful, hungry creature in need. This neediness warps her normally very self-reliant and self-dependent identity to something new. / To me, this meant learning everything about the new world/book you are about to dive into alongside the main character. As usual in books but especially in fantasy or fantasy-adjacent books, readers need a few pages or chapters to get to know the world. In Fledgling, I learned about the world right alongside Shori, as she lost her memories and also has to learn about the world. Having this moment right at the beginning of the book helped me as the reader identify myself with the protagonist character more easily, because we were (in one way or another) in the same situation: learning about a world we don’t know or don’t remember.

+ „The Bell Jar “ – Sylvia Plath / von Xenia Hammley, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:46: / Reading Practice: The Bell Jar , S. 72-73 / When I first read „The Bell Jar“ by Sylvia Plath, what stuck the most with me was the fig-tree analogy. That’s why I chose this passage for my reading practice. The passage is an inner monologue of the main character of the book, Esther Greenwood. She is thinking about her future and also possible job opportunities with her English major. / Her mother suggested to additionally learn shorthand, so she could transcribe letter for different men. Her feelings about that are very negative saying “The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters”. What really spoke to me is how clear Esther is about doing her own thing and not letting herself be dictated by men. It’s a strong representation of female empowerment concerning decision making./ The part of the fig-tree analogy is what was stuck in my mind since I first read the book because I connected very much with Esthers’ feeling of being lost and having no clue what to do in life and at the same time having so many ideas to do and not knowing what to choose. We have so many possibilities, but it doesn’t feel good but either like drowning in these endless possibilities. The fig tree is also about possibilities and life ideas that seem so unreachable or not good enough to make a living out of them, so they stay only possibilities but will never become reality. It also means that we are unable to choose one and pursue it but only choose the safe option.

+ Mary Shelley’s „Frankenstein“ and Female Solidarity/  Charlotte Mia Johns, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:46: / The 1816 novel „Frankenstein“ by Mary Shelley is a classic piece of literature which delves into many important themes from the role of a creator in the life of the created and the dangerous potential of uninhibited scientific ambition. The text is constructed using framing perspectives and follows the story of Captain Walter and his expedition towards the Arctic, who then meets Victor Frankenstein who shares his story, as well as the story of the ‘Monster’ he has created. For a novel that predominantly features male characters, Frankenstein is undoubtedly an example of a feminist text, as Shelley’s depiction of female characters, as well as the portrayal of the consequences when women’s presence is non-existent or powerless, illustrates her ability to weave this intrinsic idea throughout the story. / I love this novel, and have chosen it for this exercise because I feel that it often denied the privilege of being read as a feminist text. The facets of the novel that portray scientific ambition and the role of the creator are super interesting to me, but I believe it is the feminist undertones of the work that make it so valuable. When reading this novel, I picked up on three predominant female characters or figures with distinct contributions to the story, these being Elizabeth, Safie and the almost created female monster. Elizabeth is constantly depicted as Victor’s property, referring to her as “docile and good tempered, yet gay and playful as a summer’s insect”, showing how she lacks autonomy in the story. On top of this, the Monster uses Elizabeth’s death as a way of seeking revenge on Victor, illustrating how she is seen merely as something belonging to him rather than her own, autonomous person. / What I love about Shelley’s writing style is the framed structure, or ‘story within a story’ as this allowed for the inclusion of the character Safie, who we hear about from the Monster’s recount. Safie only exists in a few pages of the novel, but her description as a self-governing, determined, and brave woman, traits which she possesses without the validation of men, is profound as a juxtaposition of Elizabeth, who has more written about her but of not nearly as much substance and grit. In doing so, Shelley portrays how women such as Safie who have the freedom to stand out as their own individual are non-existent in the real world and merely a figment of ideal imagination. / A figure of the novel whose importance is often overlooked is the nearly fully created female Monster companion for Frankenstein’s Monster, who Frankenstein destroys just before she is complete. What is interesting about Victor’s attitude towards this Monster is that it is not out fear of the Monster herself that he destroys her, but the fear that if she were created, she would be a rationale being with a sense of self. He is afraid that she will have her own way of thinking, saying that “She who, in all probability, was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.” Shelley thus shows that female autonomy is viewed as a major threat in the eyes of men and a reason for their continual degradation and destruction. Another fear of the Frankenstein’s towards the unfinished Monster is that she will reproduce and “a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth”, showing how his fear of the Monster being headstrong and sexually liberated is because of his perception of women as docile and submissive. / Shelley’s construction of Frankenstein with these three key female figures is what makes it such a significant feminist text, as each way they are portrayed expresses a different facet of feminism and of how suppression always has negative consequences. For me as the reader, Shelley’s use of these figures asks me to shift my perspective on the role of female characters in literature. Elizabeth, Safie and the uncreated female Monster are all very different figures, but the role they play in expressing feminist traits and themes in the novel is unified, showing how Shelley understands the complexity of the female experience and expresses it in a diverse way, whilst still presenting it as a united front.

+ Han Kang’s „We Do Not Part“– historical remembrance and female solidarity / von Marie Christmann,  Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:42: /  “Can you come right away?“, texts an old friend you haven‘t seen in years, haven‘t even thought about in months. Turns out she has cut off several of her fingers in a woodworking accident and needs you to look after her pet bird. But her pet bird is still in her house, on an island, roughly 450 kilometers away from the city you‘re currently in. And it looks like a brutal snowstorm is on its way to the island. But all these obstacles aside, the bird would die of starvation and dehydration if not for you. Maybe the bird has even died already.  You are your friend‘s bird’s only hope. Would you go? / Many people would probably say no. Why would you spend all that time and money to fly to an island for a bird that might be dead? But Kyungha, an author plagued by frequent nightmares caused by research on protests and massacres for her last novel on the Gwangju uprising, decides otherwise. She might not fully understand why she made that decision, but she knows that she needs to help her friend Inseon. / We Do Not Part  feels like a fever dream buried under a blanket of snow, slowly being unearthed further with every page we turn. We as the reader escort Kyungha to Inseon‘s house near a small village in the mountains of Jeju island. Kyungha, barely even reaching the house after slipping down into a frozen stream bed and losing her phone in the thick layers of snow, finds the pet bird she was supposed to look after dead. Being troubled by constant illusions and imaginations, neither Kyungha nor the reader fully understands what‘s going on. But throughout these phantoms of Inseon‘s bird Ama, Inseon‘s dead mother and even Inseon herself, Kyungha discovers the hidden personal tragedies of the Jeju uprising. / In 1948, suddenly every citizen of Jeju was deemed red, a communist, an enemy of the state, a spy of South Korea‘s northern brother. Entire communities were wiped out and burned to the ground, families were divided, the lifeless bodies of infants thrown into the restless sea. Soldiers did not even stop their cruelties when it came to women and children. And in the midst of that was Inseon‘s family. / Is the phantom of Inseon that accompanies Kyungha through the hidden horrors of South Korea‘s contemporary history really just a simple imagination? Or has Inseon succumbed to her injuries and now supports her friend as a ghost? Is Kyungha even conscious or is “[her] face covered in snow as it would be if [she] were dead“? / Either way, Kyungha‘s and Inseon‘s relationship is a key for the continuation of the storyline. Inseon needed Kyungha to go to Jeju and care for her bird, and now Kyungha needs Inseon to help her discover the truth that was hidden. While all of Han Kang‘s books can be considered feminist writing, We Do Not Part in particular is a striking example of female solidarity. It represents that wonderfully special bond between two women that so often goes hand in hand with trust, understanding and vulnerability. Even though Kyungha is physically alone throughout most of the book, it feels as if Inseon is always there with her. Without Inseon, however real she might be, Kyungha would be helpless and hopeless. / We Do Not Part; a title with many meanings. Most centrally of course, it stands for the thousands of lives lost in 1948. While the Korean government seems to ignore this dark part of history until this day, the survivors and family members of those that were murdered will not be silenced, they will not part with the memories they have. And those memories need to be shared and promulgated so that we as uninvolved outsiders won‘t ever forget either. But „We Do Not Part“, as a more personal minor meaning, also intends to include the relationship between Kyungha and Inseon. Despite years of little to no contact, the two women re-realise what important parts they occupy in each others‘ lives. They will never be mentally parted again despite the possible physical distances between them. Because female solidarity, female homosociality, female connections are incredibly important. Especially in times where women, in particular trans women, are losing the rights they have so passionately fought for in the last centuries, we need to form and obtain the solidarity that we have with each other. / I personally think that „We Do Not Part“ is Han Kang‘s strongest novel, despite the overarching fame that The Vegetarian has gotten over the past few years. We Do Not Part causes us to be active. It forces us to rethink our relationships with our personal as well as our common history. It puts the narrative on the people before us and their stories. There is so much everyday history that has been lost simply because not enough effort was put into retaining it, or a lot of effort was put into forgetting it. In times like these where political turmoil is high and the people‘s voices are being silenced, we as a collective have to do our best to fight against that silence.

+  „A Doll’s House“ – Political Reading / von Sanem Siklar, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:29: / In „A Doll’s House“, a political reading becomes clear when Nora realizes that the roles she has lived by no longer fit her experience. This moment opens a void rather than offering an immediate solution, especially after Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter and reacts with concern only for his reputation, telling Nora that she has destroyed his “happiness” and his “whole future.” Instead of continuing to defend herself, Nora pauses and reflects, and this shift feels more important than the final door slam itself. What stayed with me most is when Nora says, “I must think things out for myself, and try to get clear about them,” because this is where she refuses to let her husband, society, or moral rules define her life. Her act of taking off her fancy dress before the final conversation also signals a move away from performance and toward speaking seriously in her own voice. This reading led me to the realization that “I notice how easily I accept roles without questioning the words that define them.” I chose this line because when I first watched the play in the theatre, I became aware of how women can be absorbed into restrictive roles not only through control or authority, but also through gestures that appear loving, such as protection, affection, or even a hug. This connects to Torvald’s repeated use of pet names like “little skylark” and “squirrel,” language that sounds caring but ultimately reinforces Nora’s dependence. As Toril Moi argues, the play is less about abstract feminist ideals and more about a woman discovering that the language available to her cannot express her lived reality. Importantly, Nora has no female genealogy or supportive network to mediate this discovery: Mrs. Linde offers limited companionship but cannot function as a symbolic guide. As a result, Nora’s awakening happens in isolation, which makes her decision more abrupt and risky, but also more radical. Without female mediation, she must invent her own measure of life from scratch, and this lack of support explains both the loneliness of her choice and the necessity of leaving. Through this void, „A Doll’s House“ makes it possible to imagine a new way of measuring life based on lived experience rather than social expectations. Ultimately, the play presents Nora’s departure as a necessary break rather than a dramatic rebellion, and it prompted me to think more critically about how easily social roles can feel natural when they are quietly reinforced.

+ “ Little Women“ by Louisa May Alcott /von Hyunjin Lee, Freitag, 16. Januar 2026, 16:26: / The passage: When Jo rejects Laurie’s proposal. The expected plot dissolves. Jo says no to the boy, to wealth, to the ease of loving someone who already knows her. The text refuses to deliver the marriage it has been building toward. / The women and their relation: Jo and Amy. Through Amy’s eventual marriage to Laurie, the text creates a strange doubling. One sister takes the husband the other refused. This isn’t rivalry. I think it’s a redistribution of plot. Amy completes the romantic trajectory, allowing Jo to remain incomplete. The relation between them becomes one of mutual authorization: Amy’s willingness to desire what Jo rejected creates space for Jo’s refusal to stand. / What becomes possible: Jo is authorized to imagine a life that is not organized around marriage or romantic completion. The authorization to say marriage is not inevitable. That a woman’s „no“ can be honored by the narrative itself, even if the novel later compensates with Professor Bhaer. In the gap between Laurie’s proposal and Jo’s eventual marriage, the text permits Jo’s choice is neither a simple “surrender” nor a complete liberation, but rather a contradictory compromise and a form of partial self‑design. This produces a space of legitimacy for female autonomy, creative ambition, and emotional self-sufficiency within a society that largely defines women through relational dependence. / For me as a reader, this makes Jo’s marriage feel like a deliberately unstable space. It neither fully cancels the earlier figure of Jo who might not marry, nor fully confirms the fantasy that love automatically harmonizes with freedom, and it invites me to sit with that tension rather than resolve it. / It makes me feel the weight of saying no as a door I’m allowed to close so another one, unmarked and unpromised, (other than loss) might exist. I feel permission to delay or resist prescribed life trajectories without framing that resistance as failure or immaturity. It asks me to treat uncertainty not as lack, but as a meaningful space of self-authorship. / I chose this text because I feel like this is one of the iconic scenes when it comes to female solidarity and it’s one of my favorite books as well.