queer.lit!: Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner – Nerd Girl Magic

Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner is coming to the Kulturzentrum Lagerhaus at the invitation of the [virt.] Literaturhaus Bremen as part of queer.lit!

Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner writes, translates and is interested in (queer) fandoms online, horror from a post-migrant perspective, language in video games and linguistic experimentation. Since 2022 she has been part of various theater, performance and film projects. She co-edits the literary magazine process*in. In 2022 she published her debut novel Messer, Zungen (Knives, Tongues), and in 2024 the bilingual book Ich kann dich noch sehen (an diesen Tagen) (I can still see you these days), which won the Hamburg Literary Awards' Book of the Year prize. She has produced translations of Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria (2022), Exponiert by Olivia Sudjic (2023) and Good Talk by Mira Jacob (2022), among others.

About the book: Based on personal experiences since childhood, Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner addresses nerd and geek culture from a non-white, non-male perspective in Nerd Girl Magic . The nerdy coming-of-age is discussed as a potential for social resistance and change using various examples. These range from the magical girl genre and its (seemingly) inherent queerness to gaming culture, video games and the fight against the exclusion of people who are not white, male and cis, to pen & paper and alternative realities, fantasy and sci-fi, to pro-wrestling and the "big wave" from Korea in recent years with K-pop and K-drama. It is about access to nerd culture for those who continue to devalue nerdiness, but also about the fact that fandom has always been permeated by anti-authoritarian, resistant, female and non-white currents, that nerd culture can be a utopian retreat for FLINTA, queer people, BIPoC, neurodivergent people and workers. All of this is embedded in a detailed, intersectional, insightful and amusing analysis of films, series, games, comics, anime, manga and genre literature such as Sailor Moon, Buffy, Star Trek and Dark Academia. It's time to rethink the image of the nerd!