Date of Award

Spring 5-28-2026

Document Type

M.A. Essay

First Advisor

Meryem Deniz

Second Advisor

Veronika Fuechtner

Third Advisor

Lucas Hollister

Abstract

The 2004 film Gegen die Wand (Head-On, dir. Fatih Akın) realizes an unprecedented intersection across the work of Turkish German studies scholars and cinema theorists; more specifically, this work explores the contact between transcultural studies and film theory, as well as the relationship between a cultural product and its medium. Winner of the 2004 Berlinale Golden Bear, Gegen die Wand has been a frequent object of study by German, Turkish, and Turkish German scholars alike, who praise the film as presenting a unique form of transcultural Turkish German identity. Yet, this scholarship still largely fails to answer how this film presents this new form of transnationality. Therefore, this article examines certain formal cinematic elements of Gegen die Wand that destroy fixed categories of particular national identity and cultural meaning, particularly through the body. Drawing on the work of phenomenological and postmodern cinema scholars Vivian Sobchack and Steven Shaviro, respectively, this article demonstrates how the film’s subversion of Turkish German cultural contact is performed through a heightened emphasis on embodiment and sensation, one that privileges the destruction, healing, and transformation of the body. This shift in experience and embodiment irrevocably alters discourse on both this film as well as transnational migration at-large. In doing so, Gegen die Wand does not just represent a watershed moment in Turkish German cultural production, but also helps illuminate the way in which embodied, sensational cinematic forms create (and destroy) cultural meaning.

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Available for download on Saturday, May 27, 2028

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