Carolin Emcke (born 18 August 1967) is a German author and journalist who worked for Der Spiegel from 1998 to 2006, often writing from areas of conflicts. From 2007 to 2014, she worked as an international reporter for Die Zeit. Her book Echoes of Violence – Letters from a War Reporter was published in 2007 at Princeton University Press. In 2008, she published Stumme Gewalt ("Mute force"), in 2013 How We Desire (German: Wie wir begehren), in 2016 Against Hate (German: Gegen den Hass), and in 2019 Yes means yes and... (Ja heißt ja und...). Carolin Emcke was honoured with several awards such as the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels in 2016, and a Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ("Federal Cross of Merit") in 2017.
Emcke received her Ph.D. at Frankfurt under the supervision of Axel Honneth with a thesis on collective identities. From 1998 to 2006 she worked for Der Spiegel, often reporting from conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan.[2] In 2003/04 she was a lecturer in Political Theory at Yale University. From 2007 to 2014 she was a writer and international reporter for DIE ZEIT (incl. in Israel, West Bank, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Haiti, US).
Emcke has held seminars and lectures on topics such as globalisation, theories of violence, and cultural identity. In 2008 she published Stumme Gewalt: Nachdenken über die RAF ("Mute force: reflections on the Red Army Faction"),[6][7][8] a memorial to her godfather, Alfred Herrhausen, who was murdered by the Red Army Faction on 30 November 1989. The work is aimed at encouraging dialogue between groups in societies, without violence, revenge, and disrespect. Emcke received the Theodor Wolff Prize for the book.
In her 2013 book, How We Desire, Emcke writes about a homosexual coming of age in the 1980s.[9] In January 2014, she conducted an interview with German football player Thomas Hitzlsperger about his coming out for Die Zeit.[10]
In her essay Against Hate (2016), Carolin Emcke speaks out on racism, fanaticism, and anti-Democratic forces. The book was published in various languages. In her book Yes means yes, and... (2019) she explores, in the wake of #MeToo, how we should think and talk about desire and power, exploitation and racism.
Kollektive Identitäten: Sozialphilosophische Grundlagen. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York, NY 2000, ISBN3-593-36484-0 (Dissertation Universität Frankfurt 1998, 360 Seiten); 2nd ed. 2010, ISBN978-3-593-39222-6.
Von den Kriegen: Briefe an Freunde [From the Wars: Letters to Friends] (in German), Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2004, ISBN3-10-017013-X (The original letters were translated from English by Sebastian Vogel and revised for printing by the author.)
How We Desire. Trans. Imogen Taylor. Text, Melbourne 2018. (Original: Wie wir begehren. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN978-3-10-017018-7.)
Weil es sagbar ist: Über Zeugenschaft und Gerechtigkeit. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN978-3-10-017019-4.
Against Hate. Trans. Tony Crawford. Polity, Cambridge 2019. (Original: Gegen den Hass. Essay. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN978-3-10-397231-3.[24])