Imagining Black Europe – serie

Forthcoming

Afropolitan Encounters: Literature and Activism in London and Berlin explores what Afropolitanism does. Mobile people of African descent use this term to address their own lived realities creatively, which often includes countering stereotypical notions of being African. Afropolitan practices are enormously heterogeneous and malleable, which constitutes its strengths and, at the same time, creates tensions. This book traces the theoretical beginnings of Afropolitanism and moves on to explore Afropolitan practices in London and Berlin. Afropolitanism can take different forms, such as that of an identity, a political and ethical stance, a dead–end road, networks, a collective self–care practice or a strategic label. In spite of the harsh criticism, Afropolitanism is attractive for people to deal with the meanings of Africa and Africanness, questions of belonging, equal rights and opportunities.While not a unitary project, the vast variety of Afropolitan practices provide approaches to contemporary political problems in Europe and beyond. In this book, Afropolitan practices are read against the specific context of German and British colonial histories and structures of racism, the histories of Black Europeans, and contemporary right–wing resurgence in Germany and England, respectively.

«ÜberLebenswege leistet einen wichtigen wissenschaftlich fundierten, sehr gut lesbaren Beitrag zur Geschichte der Deutschen Heimerziehung. Eindrücklich und lebensnah wird verdeutlicht, wie normativ staatliche Interventionen geprägt waren und leider noch immer sind. Eine wertvolle Lektüre auch um in den Themenfeldern Rassismus und Sexismus kritische Fragen an die Gegenwart zu stellen.»(Prof. Dr. Thomas Gabriel, Leiter Institut für Kindheit, Jugend und Familie, ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften)«An important contribution that will fill a considerable gap in the existing scholarship on Black Germans in postwar West Germany. ÜberLebenswege is the first book that is exclusively based on extensive interviews and Malanda is to be commended for a narrative that emphasizes the subjective experiences and interpretations of those she interviewed.»(Dr. Silke Hackenesch, Akademische Rätin, Universität zu Köln)Schwarze Deutsche, die in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren in Heimen aufwuchsen, sind in der deutschen Erinnerungskultur bislang unsichtbar. Ausgehend von dieser Leerstelle stehen in ÜberLebenswege die biografischen Erzählungen Schwarzer Deutscher im Mittelpunkt, die in den Jahren 1946 und 1949 geboren wurden und in bundesdeutschen Fürsorgeeinrichtungen aufgewachsen sind. Als nichteheliche Nachkomm*innen weißer deutscher Zivilistinnen und Schwarzer US-amerikanischer Besatzungssoldaten erlebten sie im postnationalsozialistischen Deutschland innerhalb und außerhalb von Heimen soziale Stigmatisierung und Rassismus. Vor diesem Hintergrund mussten die Frauen und Männer von frühester Kindheit an Überlebensstrategien entwickeln, um im Heim und in der Gesellschaft bestehen zu können.Das Buch verfolgt einen intersektionalen Ansatz, bei dem die Kategorien race, Klasse und Geschlecht und ihre Verwobenheit sowie eine postkoloniale Perspektive berücksichtigt werden. Damit trägt ÜberLebenswege dazu bei, eine bisherige Lücke in der Forschung zur Geschichte Schwarzer Deutscher in der frühen Bundesrepublik sichtbar zu machen und durch neue Erkenntnisse zu füllen.

«In this first comparative study of novels by Léonora Miano and Fatou Diome, Charlotte Mackay provides a convincing mapping of the evolution of the two authors’ thinking from a somewhat polarized, ‘colonial’ notion of ‘Afropean’ identity towards a more engaged formulation of diasporic identity in a more forward-looking Afro-Atlantic space.»(Nicki Hitchcott, University of St Andrews) «Mackay’s monumental work is a thorough and timely contribution to the growing field of Francophone Afropean Studies. Drawing heavily on Francophone, as well as Anglophone scholarship, Atlantic Bound convincingly displays the strongly ‘Atlantic’ influence on the writing of Diome and Miano, beyond ‘just’ Africa and Europe.»(Christopher Hogarth, University of Bristol) This book is the first to investigate the literary portrayal of African and Afrodescendant identities in early fictional works by Franco-Cameroonian writer Léonora Miano and Franco-Senegalese writer Fatou Diome. The study shows that the early fictions of these authors are characterized by changes in diasporic directionality and consciousness that increasingly engage with the Afro-Atlantic space. This space is positioned by both authors as the emancipatory site for a valorizing transglobal Africanity to which both continental and diasporic peoples can lay claim.Through close readings of two novels by each author, Miano and Diome’s particular model of Afro-Atlantic diasporic consciousness is illuminated by theory drawn from decolonial, postcolonial, ecocritical, diaspora and feminist literary studies. This comparative reading ultimately suggests that the plight of African and Afrodescendant peoples remains very much present in the literary and affective sensibilities of Miano and Diome and positions them as engagé authors within the broader social context of international movements designed to end the discrimination that people of Sub-Saharan descent still experience globally.

«Rethinking Black German Studies certainly pushes the envelope in Afro-German Studies. Its contributors travel the paths less traveled in the vast field of Afro-European studies, thus boldly enriching it by presenting salient, new, provocative, and topical material.»(Marilyn Sephocle (Monatshefte 113.1, Spring 2021)Black German Studies is an interdisciplinary field that has experienced significant growth over the past three decades, integrating subjects such as gender studies, diaspora studies, history, and media and performance studies. The field’s contextual roots as well as historical backdrop, nevertheless, span centuries. This volume assesses where the field is now by exploring the nuances of how the past – colonial, Weimar, National Socialist, post- 1945, and post-Wende – informs the present and future of Black German Studies; how present generations of Black Germans look to those of the past for direction and empowerment; how discourses shift due to the diversification of power structures and the questioning of identity-based categories; and how Black Germans affirm their agency and cultural identity through cultural productions that engender both counter-discourses and counter-narratives.Examining Black German Studies as a critical, hermeneutic field of inquiry, the contributions are organized around three thematically conceptualized sections: German and Austrian literature and history; pedagogy and theory; and art and performance. Presenting critical works in the fields of performance studies, communication and rhetoric, and musicology, the volume complicates traditional historical narratives, interrogates interdisciplinary methods, and introduces theoretical approaches that help to advance the field.