Devoted II : A Reading Event by FU Review Literary Journal
“What do works of art do? What do they set in motion? And to what are they linked or tied?” — Rita Felski
Devoted is a reading series in which we invite writers, thinkers, and artists to share texts by other authors that have influenced them personally or professionally.
In this edition, rather than taking a supposedly detached approach to writing and reading literature, we will look at how we connect to particular traditions, movements, and voices.
What hooked us when we first encountered a piece of writing? Why do certain texts stay with us and affect us, becoming part of our daily lives and routines? Which poems and stories do we carry with us, echoing through our own writing and thinking? And who taught us the vocabulary to describe them?
As we are always already entangled with our environment in ways yet to be uncovered, the readings will explore devotion to texts in a variety of ways, ranging from traditions of confessional writing and embodied memory, to deeply personal encounters with literature.
Moderation by Jan Derksen.
The Readers
Demi Anter is an Austrian-American writer, performer and facilitator. She has appeared at Glastonbury, Poetry Ireland and the Scottish Storytelling Centre, with work published in The Times (UK), Magma and CHEERIO. Her debut collection, Small Machine, was shortlisted for the 2022 Poetry Book Awards. She regularly teaches for the Royal National Theatre and is the creator of Writing Berlin, a deep dive into contemporary Berlin literature, and the Tempelhof Write-In, a workshop series focused on one of Berlin’s most treasured public spaces.
Lea Schneider is a poet, essayist, translator and literary scholar based in Berlin. Working at the crossroads of academia and literature, she regularly writes literary pieces and translations from the Chinese, as well as critical essays, and has also collaborated with numerous writing collectives, including G13 and Poesie Handverlesen. She won the Ernst-Reuter-Preis for her PhD research on radical vulnerability and queer-feminist appropriations of shame in 2024. Her most recent book, Von Tieren und anderen Menschen (Fischer 2026), explores different perspectives on the more-than-human world in relation to indigenous philosophies.
Jehonë Jahaj is a writer, social worker, community worker and founder of the diasporic platforms Marrja Zezë and Diaswhora, which both depict inter-diasporic collaboration, interactive performance art and alternative story telling. Born in Kosovo and raised in Berlin, she committed her work to social justice, trans-generational understanding, cultural diplomacy and individual empowerment.
Crista Siglin is from the Midwestern US. They studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, and have been based in Berlin since 2017. Siglin was a poetry editor for SAND Journal Berlin, and was a mentor for The Reader. They run Poetry As__A Workshop, and are a founder of AKIMBO. Their works have been published in Bear Review, FU Review, PARATAXE, and the Poetry Foundation’s essay archive. They have exhibited at the LUMA Westbau Museum, Retramp Gallery, Galerie And. They have performed for the Poetry Foundation and the Poesiefestival Berlin. Notably, they are a familiar to their cat, Apollo.
Jan Derksen is a prose editor at the FU Review and is currently completing his Master’s degree in German Literature at HU Berlin, having previously studied German, English and Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh and FU Berlin. As part of the AfterWords research project, led by Karen Leeder (University of Oxford), he explores how literatures from the current and previous centuries engage with tradition and the ghosts of the past. He recently co-edited a conference volume on contemporary poetry and afterness (AfterWords. Nachheit und Nachleben in der Lyrik, Berlin Universities Publishing 2026).
Format: Reading performances followed by a guided conversation.
Admission: Free.