Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture

317 Pages·2016·11.888 MB·English

by  Sara Lennox

L
E REMAPPING
N
In 1984 at the Free University of Berlin, the African American poet Audre Lorde N
O
asked her Black, German-speaking women students about their identities. The X
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 BLACK
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,
R
and the enormous outpouring of Black German creativity after 1986.
e
In addition to the editor, the contributors include Robert Bernasconi, Tina
m
Campt, Maria I. Diedrich, Maureen Maisha Eggers, Fatima El-Tayeb, Heide
a
Fehrenbach, Dirk Göttsche, Felicitas Rütten Jaima, Katja Kinder, Nicola Lauré p
al-Samarai, Tobias Nagl, Katharina Oguntoye, Peggy Piesche, and Christian p
i
Rogowski. n GERMANY
g

B
“Thanks to the detail of historical material, the diversity of themes,
l
a
approaches, and contexts covered, readers—both those working in
c
the field and those who know little about Black Germans—will have k
the opportunity to learn from established and emerging scholar-
G
activists about a wide range of topics pertaining to Black German
e NEW PERSPECTIVES
history, politics, and culture.” r
—Stella Bolaki, editor of Audre Lorde’s Transnational Legacies m
a ON AFRO-GERMAN
n
y
SARA LENNOX is professor emerita of German studies at the University of HISTORY, POLITICS,
Massachusetts Amherst and author of Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters:
Feminism, History, and Ingeborg Bachmann (University of Massachusetts Press,
AND CULTURE
2006).
Cover design by Sally Nichols EDITED BY SARA LENNOX
UNIVERSITYO F
massachusetts
pressAmherst & Boston MASSACHUSETTS
www.umass.edu/umpress
Lennox_cover_final.indd 1 9/26/17 3:48 PM
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Remapping
Black
geRmany
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Remapping
Black
geRmany
New PersPectives

oN Afro-G ermAN
History, Politics,
ANd culture
edited by
SaRa lennox
uNiversity of mAssAcHusetts Press
Amherst and Boston
Copyright © 2016 by University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978– 1- 62534– 231– 7 (paper); 230– 0 (hardcover)
Designed by Sally Nichols
Set in Arno Pro
Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc.
Cover design by Sally Nichols
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
contentS
Preface
vii
Introduction
Sara Lennox
1
1. Knowledges of (Un- )Belonging
Epistemic Change as a Defining Mode for Black Women’s Activism in Germany
Maureen MaiSha eggerS
33
2. Inspirited Topography
Haunting Survivals and the Location of Experience in Black German Traditions
of Knowledge and Culture
nicoLa Lauré aL- SaMarai
46
3. Self- Assertion, Intervention, and Achievement
Developments in Contemporary Black German Writing
Dirk göttSche
67
4. After the German Invention of Race
Conceptions of Race Mixing from Kant to Fischer and Hitler
robert bernaSconi
91
5. Counterfeit Money / Counterfeit Discourse
A Black German Trickster Tale
tobiaS nagL
105
6. Black Voices on the “Black Horror on the Rhine”?
chriStian rogowSki
118
v
vi ConTEnTS
7. Black “others”?
African Americans and Black Germans in the Third Reich
Maria i. DieDrich
135
8. The Motion of Stillness
Diaspora, Stasis, and Black Vernacular Photography
tina caMpt
149
9. My 13 Years under the nazi Terror
Martha Stark
Introduction by Felicitas Rütten Jaima
171
10. Black occupation Children and the Devolution of the nazi Racial State
heiDe Fehrenbach
203
11. Making African Diasporic Pasts Possible
A Retrospective View of the GDR and Its Black (Step-)Children
peggy pieSche
226
12. Blackness and Its (Queer) Discontents
FatiMa eL- tayeb
243
13. Looking Backward and Forward
Twenty Years of the Black Women’s Movement in Germany
Katharina oguntoye, Katja kinDer,
Maureen MaiSha eggerS, anD peggy pieSche
259
Epilogue. of Epistemologies and Positionalities
A Conversation, Berlin, october 21, 2014
peggy pieSche anD Sara Lennox
274
notes on Contributors
283
Index
289
pReface
t
his book has been a long time in the making, and I have incurred many
debts along the way. This volume could not even have been conceived
without the efforts of Peggy Piesche and Fatima El- Tayeb, whose bril-
liant grant-w riting skills won us an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
TransCoop grant for a project on Black German studies and a Volkswa-
gen Foundation grant for a project on Black European studies. I am indebted
to those foundations for providing us with the funding that enabled us to
develop a scholarly focus on Black Germany in the context of Black Europe,
and I thank the Provost’s Office at the University of Massachusetts for pro-
viding the matching funds that enabled us to accept the TransCoop grant.
I am also grateful to Randolph Ochsmann, who was willing to become our
senior German partner for both projects, and to Tobias Nagl, who moved
to Western Massachusetts to become a research associate for the Black Ger-
man project, engaged vigorously in its activities, and helped to conceptualize
this book. Their efforts, along with Beverly Weber’s organizational support,
made it possible to host the conference “Remapping Black Germany: New
Perspectives on Afro- German History, Politics, and Culture” at the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts in April 2006, the event from which this volume
sprang.
Other friends and colleagues helped me think more deeply about Black
Germans and race in Germany. Dagmar Schultz and Ika Hügel- Marshall first
told me about Black Germans and generously introduced me to members
of the Black German community. I am likewise grateful to Rosemarie Peña,
whom I first met when she attended “Remapping Black Germany,” and who
was energized by the conference to take over the leadership of what became
the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA). This book
and my understanding of the Black German experience have benefited from
the BGHRA’s three conferences that Rosemarie, Tina Campt, Leroy Hopkins,
and I co- organized. Panels on race and Blackness in Germany over the past
vii
viii PREFACE
decade and a half at the conferences of the German Studies Association, along
with two recent seminars on Black Germans chaired by Tiffany Florvil and
Vanessa Plumly, have also shaped my thinking and left their imprint on this
book. I have learned and continue to learn from my graduate students in Ger-
man and Scandinavian studies at UMass, especially Jamele Watkins and Kev-
ina King, whose work focuses on Black Germans.
Friends have also helped me continue to challenge my own whiteness,
with special thanks owed to Arlene Avakian and John Bracey. Anna Schrade,
Peggy Piesche, and two anonymous reviewers for the University of Massa-
chusetts Press kindly made detailed suggestions for improving the multiple
drafts of my introduction. Julia Demmin and Stephanie Keep know very well
the gratitude I owe them. I am also grateful to the contributors to this vol-
ume for their patience as they waited for the book to appear.
Finally, my son, Jonathan Lennox, and my partner, Arthur Cohen, have
borne with me over the years that I have worked on this book, and I thank
them now and always for their love, support, and understanding.