UCCA’s first media salon of 2011 features the Titanic – not the famous shipwreck, but a well-known German satirical magazine. In Germany, sarcasm not only appears in literature, but is also commonly used in mass media. Titanic - das endgültige Satiremagazin published its first issue in 1979, and sells almost 100,000 copies of each issue. The magazine established its reputation through publishing sensational articles, as a means of exploring the legal limits of satire. Featuring humorous commentary, regular columns, letters from readers and more, the magazine is very well-received and popular with readers. Although every issue undergoes strict legal censorship, the satirical content of the magazine often attracts lawsuits and legal prosecutions.

German author Christian Y. Schmidt, a former senior editor of Titanic, will share with our audience the history and achievements of the magazine. He will talk about different formats of satire, to provoke the thinking of both Chinese and German media professionals: what is satire? What should it be like? Should Chinese media incorporate such content? Are there multiple possibilities in journalism and criticism?

This event requires pre-registration. Please register through the designated e-mail address. Antenne aus dem Hause Goethe is a cultural discussion platform created by the Goethe Institute and UCCA. We gather new information and spread new knowledge about various fields including science, technology, history, literature, art and media.

qian.xu@peking.goethe.org

Mr. Christian Y. Schmidt is a German author, columnist and freelancer. He served as a senior editor of the German satirical magazine Titanic for many years, and is now a senior consultant for a think tank that covers a wide range of subjects including the press, the economy, science and art. He has co-authored comic books including Genschman and Die roten Strolche. He is also the author of Wir sind die Wahnsinnigen – a very successful biography of former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer. In 2008, he published his travelogue about China – Allein unter 1.3 Milliarden – which was included in the bestseller list of die Spiegel. The Chinese version of Mr. Schmidt’s travelogue will be published in March, 2011.

Mr. Schmidt has long written for Titanic’s column “Bliefe von dlüben“ (“Letter from China”). In 2009, an anthology of the column was published, which was well received at the Frankfurt Book Fair and praised by important German media outlets such as die Zeit.

Mr. Schmidt also writes a column about China for the Berlin daily Tageszeitung. His past columns will soon be published in an anthology titled Im Jahr des Tigerochsen (The Year of Tiger and Ox).

Translator: Gong Yingxin

PARTNER ：

Goethe Institute, China