A major contribution to Black-German studies

In the 1980s and 1990s, Black German women began to play significant roles in challenging the discrimination in their own nation and abroad. Their grassroots organizing, writings, and political and cultural activities nurtured innovative traditions, ideas, and practices. These strategies facilitated new, often radical bonds between people from disparate backgrounds across the Black Diaspora. Tiffany N. Florvil examines the role of queer and straight women in shaping the contours of the modern Black German movement as part of the Black internationalist opposition to racial and gender oppression. Florvil shows the multifaceted contributions of women to movement making, including Audre Lorde’s role in influencing their activism; the activists who inspired Afro-German women to curate their own identities and histories; and the evolution of the activist groups Initiative of Black Germans and Afro-German Women. These practices and strategies became a rallying point for isolated and marginalized women (and men) and shaped the roots of contemporary Black German activism. Richly researched and multidimensional in scope, Mobilizing Black Germany offers a rare in-depth look at the emergence of the modern Black German movement and Black feminists’ politics, intellectualism, and internationalism.

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.

Fresh perspectives on the black diaspora's global histories

Located in the often-contentious center of the European continent, German territory has regularly served as a primary tool through which to understand and study Germany’s economic, cultural, and political development. Many German geographers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became deeply invested in geopolitical determinism—the idea that a nation’s territorial holdings (or losses) dictate every other aspect of its existence. Taking this as his premise, Mingus focuses on the use of maps as mediums through which the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union sought to reshape German national identity after the Second World War. As important as maps and the study of geography have been to the field of European history, few scholars have looked at the postwar development of occupied Germany through the lens of the map—the most effective means to orient German citizens ontologically within a clearly and purposefully delineated spatial framework. Mingus traces the institutions and individuals involved in the massive cartographic overhaul of postwar Germany. In doing so, he explores not only the causes and methods behind the production and reproduction of Germany’s mapped space but also the very real consequences of this practice.

"Covering a broad scope, this collection examines the cinemas of Europe, East Asia, India, Africa and Latin America, and will be of interest to scholars and students of film studies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies, as well as to film enthusiasts keen to explore a wider range of world cinema."--Jacket.

Located in the often-contentious center of the European continent, German territory has regularly served as a primary tool through which to understand and study Germany’s economic, cultural, and political development. Many German geographers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became deeply invested in geopolitical determinism—the idea that a nation’s territorial holdings (or losses) dictate every other aspect of its existence. Taking this as his premise, Mingus focuses on the use of maps as mediums through which the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union sought to reshape German national identity after the Second World War. As important as maps and the study of geography have been to the field of European history, few scholars have looked at the postwar development of occupied Germany through the lens of the map—the most effective means to orient German citizens ontologically within a clearly and purposefully delineated spatial framework. Mingus traces the institutions and individuals involved in the massive cartographic overhaul of postwar Germany. In doing so, he explores not only the causes and methods behind the production and reproduction of Germany’s mapped space but also the very real consequences of this practice.

This is a unique and fascinating autobiography which tells the story of twentieth-century Germany and its black population through the eyes of a member of the first black German community, Theodor Michael.

Drawing on a rich lineage of anti-discriminatory scholarship, art, and activism, Locating African European Studies engages with contemporary and historical African European formations, positionalities, politics, and cultural productions in Europe. Locating African European Studies reflects on the meanings, objectives, and contours of this field. Twenty-six activists, academics, and artists cover a wide range of topics, engaging with processes of affiliation, discrimination, and resistance. They negotiate the methodological foundations of the field, explore different meanings and politics of ‘African’ and ‘European’, and investigate African European representations in literature, film, photography, art, and other media. In three thematic sections, the book focusses on: African European social and historical formations African European cultural production Decolonial academic practice Locating African European Studies features innovative transdisciplinary research, and will be of interest to students and scholars of various fields, including Black Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, African American Studies, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Studies, African Studies, History, and Social Sciences.

With heart, humor, and razor-sharp observation, this intimate and incisive memoir traces the journey of a Black, queer woman as she searches the world for a place of security and acceptance to call home I’ve never seen home as a permanent concept; it is an image crafted from untempered glass that threatens to shatter with lack of care. Jennifer Neal was born in the United States to a family that moved continuously for their own survival and well-being—from the Great Migration to the twenty-first century. As an adult, she has continued to travel the world as a Black queer woman, across two decades and four countries—from Japan to the US and then Australia to Germany, where she has settled for now. Throughout her moves, Neal threads her personal story of immigration with local Black histories and racial politics to provide context for her own experiences. The result is both a crucial examination of how racism plays a foundational role in modern-day immigration systems and a tender tribute to immigrants and their stories. An unwavering interrogation of colonialism and policy, love and loss, hypocrisy and resistance, My Pisces Heart demands meaningful conversation about not only the ways in which we live with our histories, but also how they live through us—urging an honest dialogue on why the West continues to grapple with its past and visualize its future.