Luisa Ringel is a Cologne-based event organiser and curator specialising in literature and cultural festivals. She has extensive experience developing and delivering literary formats, including serving as production manager for lit.COLOGNE POP within the international literature festival lit.COLOGNE. She was also part of the collective curatorial team behind the 2024 BİRLİKTE cultural festival, commemorating the racially motivated nail bomb attack on Cologne’s Keupstraße. Her work, particularly with BİRLİKTE, underscores her commitment to fostering German-Turkish dialogue and highlighting the power of literary spaces for exchange, remembrance, and resistance. 
She will be in Istanbul as the second resident of Seyir Quartier between December 2025 - January 2026 and will be organizing the event series "Stories of Frailty and Strength".
„Stories of Frailty and Strength: A Reparative Dialogue“
The programme enables two authors from Turkey to travel to Cologne and connects them with a German literary curator who is in reverse staying in İstanbul for a residency. In this first edition Turkish author Zelal Dicle Baz, meets German literary curator and scholar Luisa Ringel – together they develop and implement literary formats, thereby creating lasting links between the literary scenes in Cologne and İstanbul.
As an interdisciplinary cultural practice even beyond academic studies to foster emotional repair and resilience, particularly within the German-Turkish context of migration, intergenerational trauma, and female agency. It combines literary analysis with artistic expressions of personal and collective repair and resistance.
TALK & READING:
„Stories of Frailty and Strength: A Reparative Dialogue“ On the Healing Potential of Literature Through Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Reparative Reading Approach WHEN: 10.01.2026 15:00 - 16:00 + Q&A WHERE: TESAK Caferağa, Rıhtım Cd. No:2 D:3 Kadıköy SPEAKERS: Zelal Dicle Baz and Luisa Ringel Talk will be held in English, Turkish translation will be provided.
German literary scholar and curator Luisa Ringel talks to Turkish author Zelal Dicle Baz about her collection of short stories “Misafir Evinde Ölmek” and examines selected texts using the Reparative Reading Approach developed by American literary scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Instead of simply uncovering knowledge, Sedgwick's approach seeks ways to go beyond it: How does knowledge work performatively?
Baz's stories embody a reparative sensibility and foreground resilience, emotional complexity and hopeful ambiguity in a misogynistic everyday life marked by violence against women.
Together, Luisa Ringel and Zelal Dicle Baz discuss how reparative reading as a cultural and artistic practice can offer a structured framework for critical engagement and dialogue, not only in relation to literary texts, but also to political discourse.
WORKSHOP:
“Stories of Frailty and Strength: Reparative Reading in Artistic Practice” Exploring Reparative Reading Approach as a Cultural Practice Open Call: For everyone passionate about literature and artistic expression When: First Session: 17.01.26 Second Session: 24.01.26 between 12:00 - 17:00, with a coffee break WHERE: TESAK, Literature Salon Caferağa, Rıhtım Cd. No:2 D:3, Kadıköy COORDINATORS: Luisa Rİngel, with Zelal Dicle Baz ve Sedef İlgiç Workshop will be held in English. To register or inquire more information please send an email to seyirquartier@gmail.com adresine e-posta gönderebilirsiniz.
Initially conceived as an alternative to conventional literary criticism, which tends to prioritize the exposure of oppression or normative linguistic constraints, the idea of Reparative Reading by American literary scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick creates a space wherein subjects engage texts, images, or practices not only to process trauma but also to discover moments of pleasure, solace, community, and emergent possibilities.
In this workshop we will explore the third space between the shared history of Turkish and German cultural history by using Reparative Reading to reflect on the experiences of vulnerability, fragmentation and loss that are inscribed in German-Turkish relations, and from there uncover the shared experiences of care and collective imagination.
The workshop invites you to examine Reparative Reading as an interdisciplinary cultural practice by responding to selected texts that reflect Turkish-German relations using literary, musical or performative approaches.
Everybody who is interested in cross-cultural encounters and interdisciplinary artistic practices is warmly welcomed to participate – no matter if you´re already a professional artist or simply enjoy artistic expression.
On Friday, January 30 at 6:30 pm, a closing event titled “Stories of Vulnerability and Strength: An Encounter in the Traces of Repair between Türkiye and Germany” where the outcomes of the workshops will be presented, will be held at the TESAK Conference Hall once again.
Organized by
Supported by
Event Partners
Project Partners
das “andere” Literaturcafé, Frankfur Kitap Fuarı, Kulturbunker Köln-Mülheim, Land in Sicht e.V., NEOLA art projects e.V., Portiko Okumaları – Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat, Verein zur Förderung der Städtepartnerschaft Köln – Istanbul e.V., Urban Cafe
