Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since summer 2010, the Young Scholars Network “Black Diaspora and Germany“ will host its opening workshop at the English Seminar, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster, Germany. Under the header “Transcending Diaspora: Whiteness, Performativity and the Politics of the Body” the workshop will address the potential and limitations of current conceptualizations of diaspora as a category of analysis and identity construction in the German context. Aiming to re-evaluate the suitability of the terminology of a ‘Black diaspora’ in the case of Germany and to determine the factors that differentiate the Black diaspora from other collective identities, the workshop will locate the concept of diaspora on the basis of specific case studies within the force field of nationality, transnationality, and ethnicity and interrogate it as to its transgressive potential. Exemplary studies dealing with the interdependencies of the body, politics, ethnicity, culture, the territorial state and deterritorialized identities will illuminate transnational parameters and transcultural practices and deconstruct essentializing definitions of diaspora.

The thematic spectrum of the workshop participants ranges from
counterhegemonic approaches rooted in critical whiteness studies over analyses of the performativity of diaspora to aspects of body history that understands physical as well as imagined bodies as arenas of power and discursive conflict.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers are Prof. Dr. Tina Campt (Associate Professor of Women's Studies, History and German, Duke University; Visiting Professor of Women's and Africana Studies , Barnard College, Columbia University) and Prof. Dr. Alexander Weheliye (Associate Professor of English, African American Studies, Northwestern University); network members speaking at the opening workshop are Holger Droessler (Harvard/LMU), Dr. Frank Mehring (FU), Christina Oppel (WWU Muenster) and Dr. Silke Stroh (WWU Muenster).

For further information and workshop registration please contact the workshop organizers at
bdg[ad]uni-muenster.de; for further information see http://blackdiasporaandgermany.blogspot.com/