Conference: Remapping Black Germany, 04/06
Conference Announcement:
Remapping Black Germany. New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and
Culture
April 21 - 23, 2006, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Contact: Tobias Nagl, 413-545-6678, nagl@german.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/germanic/remapping
The disparate and fragmented histories of Black men and women in
Germany long created a barrier to the recognition of the commonalities
among Black Germans as subjects of their own history and
historiography. Beginning in the early 1980s Black Germans have not
only begun to form a new Black German cultural movement but also to
rewrite German history from a Black perspective. Since its
inauguration, the project of recovering the Black presence in Germany
has given rise to an array of methodological approaches that draw
inspiration from African-American Studies, feminism, literary theory,
anthropology, and cultural studies.
This conference explores new directions in Black German Studies.
Conceived in an interdisciplinary and transnational way, Black German
Studies can not only contribute to Black diaspora and German Studies
but also illuminate the process of modern racial formation from new
perspectives.
A series of cultural events, including musical performances, spoken
word poetry, and art exhibitions will be held in conjunction with the
conference.
All events are free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to
join the conference presenters and members of the Black European
Studies Project for meals during the conference - if you intend to do
this, please contact us by April 15th.
Please contact Tobias Nagl for information about meals and housing at
nagl@german.umass.edu .
For more information, see:
http://www.umass.edu/germanic/remapping/
Please forward this email to others who might be interested.
Conference schedule:
Friday, 21 April, Hampden Gallery/Southwest Residential Area
4:00 - 7:00 Art Opening and Reception
Paintings by Daniel Kojo Schrade / Video works by Ingrid Mwangi
- 7
- 30 - 9:30 Performances by Olumide Popoola (spoken-word poetry) and
Patrice (acoustic reggae/neo-soul)
Saturday, 22 April, lsenberg School of Management 137
9:00 - 10:30 Race and Modernity
Fred Moten (University of Southern California), "Black Kant (Pronounced Cant)"
Robert Bernasconi (University of Memphis), "After the Invention of
Race: Racial Discourse in Germany from Kant to National Socialism"
10:45 - 12:15 Race, Colonialism, and Imperial Germany
Andrew Zimmerman (George Washington University), "Bismarck Bell and
Booker T. Washington in the Black Atlantic's Berlin"
Sara Pugach (Ohio State University), "A Case of Mistaken Identity:
Africans, Germans, and Definitions of Blackness in the Kaiserreich"
2:00 - 3:45 The Black Presence in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich
Christian Rogowski (Amherst College), "Black Voices on the Black Horror
on the Rhine?"
Tobias Nagl (University of Massachusetts), "Afro-Germanic Doublings:
Fragments, History, Identity"
Maria Diedrich (Universitat Munster), "Black Others? African Americans
and Black Germans in the Reich"
4:00 - 6:30 Blackness in Two Germanies
Heide Fehrenbach (Northern Illinois University), "Black Occupation
Children and the Devolution of the Nazi Racial State"
Randolph Ochsmann (Universitat Mainz), "German Brown Babies in the
Fifties: Personal Accounts"
Peggy Piesche (Universitat Mainz) "Relocating 'Race': The GDR and its
'Other'- Black Images in Visual Culture"
Jason Owens (South Dakota State University) "Namibia's 'GDR Kids' from
Cadres to Catalysts"
8:30 Artists' Roundtable
Patrice (Bart-Williams), Olumide Popoola, Daniel Kojo Schrade
Sunday, 23 April, lsenberg School of Management 137
900-10:30 Race and the Visual Archive
Tina Campt (Duke University), "Capturing the Black German Subject: Race
and Gender in the Visual Archive"
Jurgen Heinrichs (Seton Hall University), "Against Race: The Universal
Aesthetics of Marc Brandenburg"
10:45-12:15 Black Diasporic Thought and Contemporary Germany
Alexander Weheliye (Northwestern University), "A Volk to Come: Black
Germans and the African Diaspora"
Nicola Laure al-Samarai (TU Berlin), "History, Theory, Experience:
Diasporic Perspectives in Black German Thought"
2:00-3:45 Black Diasporic Thought and Contemporary Germany
Damani Partridge (University of Michigan), "Travelling Through the
'Black' Body and Finding the German Nation"
Michelle Wright (University of Minnesota), "Blackness and Its
Discontents: Modernity and the Afro-German"
Fatima El-Tayeb (University of California at San Diego), "Queering
Ethnicity? Beyond the Black Paradigm"
Project funded by grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and
the Provost of the University of Massachusetts Amherst
with the generous support of the Vice Provost for Research, Dean of the
Graduate School, Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, Afro-American
Studies, Alana Affairs, Alumni Association, Anthropology, DEFA Film
Library, English, Fine Arts Center, Germanic Languages and
Literatures, Hampden Gallery, ISHA (Interdisciplinary Seminar in the
Humanities and Fine Arts), Modern European Studies, Student Affairs
Cultural Enrichment Fund, Women's Studies, University of Massachusetts
Amherst; Diversity Office, European Studies, German Studies, Amherst
College; Multicultural Affairs, Hampshire College; African-American and
African Studies, Critical Social Thought, German Studies, Mount Holyoke
College; German Studies, Theatre, Smith College; Five Colleges, Inc.,
Goethe lnstitut Boston, Max Kade Foundation and many others ...
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.