Michael Zeuske – författare

The book series of the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies publishes monographs and edited volumes that examine different phenomena of slavery and other forms of strong asymmetrical dependencies in societies. The series follows the BCDSS’s research agenda in going beyond the dichotomy of slavery versus freedom by proposing a new key concept, strong asymmetrical dependency, which covers all forms of bondage across time and space. This includes debt bondage, convict labor, tributary labor, servitude, serfdom, and domestic work, as well as forms of wage labor and various types of patronage. Works published in this series will also investigate periods, regions and contexts in world history that have not been directly affected by Western colonization, such as the ancient Near East, pre-modern and modern societies in Asia, Africa, and the pre-colonial Americas. Language Policy Dependency and Slavery StudiesWith its mission to explore phenomena of asymmetrical dependency, the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) and its book series Dependency and Slavery Studies work against forms of gatekeeping which may put obstacles in the way of scholarly work in English felt to be non-standard. The Center and its book series understand language to be intimately connected to power structures and strive to foster an awareness of epistemic dependencies resulting from linguistic dependencies. Given that language is multiply situated and constantly evolving, the editors of Dependency and Slavery Studies do not insist on conformity to the traditional binary standard Englishes (British and American). Authors are thus encouraged to write in their national or regional variety of English.

In the recent cultural heritage boom, community-based and national identity projects are intertwined with interest in cultural tourism and sites of the memory of enslavement. Questions of historical guilt and present responsibility have become a source of social conflict, particularly in multicultural societies with an enslaving past. This became apparent in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, when statues of enslavers and colonizers were toppled, controversial debates about streets and places named after them re-ignited, and the European Union apologized for slavery after the racist murder of George Floyd. Related debates focus on museums, on artworks acquired unjustly in societies under colonial rule, the question of whether and how museums should narrate the hidden past of enslavement and colonialism, including their own colonial origins with respect to narratives about presumed European supremacy, and the need to establish new monuments for the enslaved, their resistance, and abolitionists of African descent. In this volume, we address this dissonant cultural heritage in Europe, with a strong focus on the tangible remains of enslavement in the Atlantic space in the continent. This may concern, for instance, the residences of royal, noble, and bourgeois enslavers; charitable and cultural institutions, universities, banks, and insurance companies, financed by the traders and owners of enslaved Africans; merchants who dealt in sugar, coffee, and cotton; and the owners of factories who profited from exports to the African and Caribbean markets related to Atlantic slavery.