Remapping Black Germany
314 pages, 6 x 9
16 b&w illus.
Paperback
Release Date:16 Dec 2016
ISBN:9781625342317
Remapping Black Germany
New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture
Edited by Sara Lennox
University of Massachusetts Press
In 1984 at the Free University of Berlin, the African American poet Audre Lorde asked her Black, German-speaking women students about their identities. The women revealed that they had no common term to describe themselves and had until then lacked a way to identify their shared interests and concerns. Out of Lorde's seminar emerged both the term "Afro-German" (or "Black German") and the 1986 publication of the volume that appeared in English translation as Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. The book launched a movement that has since catalyzed activism and scholarship in Germany.
Remapping Black Germany collects thirteen pieces that consider the wide array of issues facing Black German groups and individuals across turbulent periods, spanning the German colonial period, National Socialism, divided Germany, and the enormous outpouring of Black German creativity after 1986.
In addition to the editor, the contributors include Robert Bernasconi, Tina Campt, Maria I. Diedrich, Maureen Maisha Eggers, Fatima El-Tayeb, Heide Fehrenbach, Dirk Göttsche, Felicitas Jaima, Katja Kinder, Tobias Nagl, Katharina Oguntoye, Peggy Piesche, Christian Rogowski, and Nicola Lauré al-Samarai.
Remapping Black Germany collects thirteen pieces that consider the wide array of issues facing Black German groups and individuals across turbulent periods, spanning the German colonial period, National Socialism, divided Germany, and the enormous outpouring of Black German creativity after 1986.
In addition to the editor, the contributors include Robert Bernasconi, Tina Campt, Maria I. Diedrich, Maureen Maisha Eggers, Fatima El-Tayeb, Heide Fehrenbach, Dirk Göttsche, Felicitas Jaima, Katja Kinder, Tobias Nagl, Katharina Oguntoye, Peggy Piesche, Christian Rogowski, and Nicola Lauré al-Samarai.
Thanks to the detail of historical material, the diversity of themes, approaches, and contexts covered, readers—both those working in the field and those who know little about Black Germans—will have the opportunity to learn from established and emerging scholar-activists about a wide range of topics pertaining to Black German history, politics, and culture.'—Stella Bolaki, editor of Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies
'Lennox's book makes a crucial contribution to configuring the Black German archive as an inclusive and transnational body of work. Accessible to readers versed and unversed in the history of the Black German Diaspora, it lends itself to implementation acrosss curricula in the interdisciplinary humanities.'—Monatshefte
'Remapping Black Germany is a valuable resource to novices and experts alike, offering a sound introduction to the field of Black German studies, introducing innovative methodologies, and raising pertinent questions scholars will likely concern themselves with for the next twenty years.'—Feminist German Studies
Sara Lennox is professor emerita of German studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters: Feminism, History, and Ingeborg Bachmann (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006).
