CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Thursday, August 8
3:00-5:00 Panel: Life Histories
Ruth Spencer, “Catching Up with My Life: An African American Uncovers Her Roots in Germany”
Anna Hawthorne, Title TBA
Lita Wimbley, “Leslie Littles and Else Lindenbeck”
John Reed, “It’s Not Always Black And White”
5:00-6:30 Keynote: Maisha Eggers, “Dominant Constructions of Black Children in the Two Germanies”
6:30: Reception
Friday, August 9
10:00-12:00 Panel: Theory/Methodology/Approaches to Black German Studies
Maria I. Diedrich, “Fugitive Dreams: ‘We’-Formation among Black and White Hessians During the American Revolution”
Sabine Broeck, “Tracing Slavery in Bremen: Black Studies Beyond Empathic Ethnography”
Vanessa Plumley, “Afro-/Black Germans in Exilic Heimat”
Gundolf Graml, “Teaching Afro-German History and Culture in College Courses: A Report on Successes and Challenges”
12:00-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Panel: Black Germans During the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich
Julia Roos, “From Worms to Kentucky, via Jerusalem: The Three Diasporas of Erika M.”
Jonathan Wipplinger, “’Biguine’:The African Diasporic Presence at Weimar’s End”
Cerue Diggs, “Between the Cracks: Consideration of Gender in the Accounts of Afro-German Experiences under Hitler”
Brett M. Van Hoesen, “From Kladderadatsch’s Rhein und Ruhr”(1924) to Ingrid Mwangi’s Static Drift”(2001): Mapping the Visual Legacy of the Rhineland Controversy”
3:30-4:00: Coffee Break
4:00-6:30: Screening of Toxi, with Introduction and Q & A with Angelica Fenner
6:30-7:30: Reception
7:30-9:00: Presentations by Artists Sharon Dodua Otoo and Sandrine Micossé-Aikins
Saturday, August 10
10:00-12:00: Panel: Postwar Black German History
Felicitas Jaima, “Adopting Diaspora: Black American Military Women and Germany's 'Brown Babies”
Sonya Donaldson, “Maternal Fantasies and Transnational Bodies: Reconstructing Afro-German Identity in the Diaspora”
Eric Allina, “‘Proud to Be in the Land of Marx and Engels?’ African Worker Life in East Germany’s Last Decade”
Peggy Piesche, “Audre Lorde and the Black Women’s Movement in Germany”
12-1:30: Lunch
1:30-3:30 Panel: Performing Black German Identities
Kevina King, “Performativity in Interviews with Black German Activists”
Ela Gezen, “’Distant Connections’: May Ayim’s Blues Aesthetic”
Michele Eley, “Toxi Transposed? Branwen Okpako’s Tal der Ahnungslosen”
Jamele Watkins, “Black German Performativity: Examining Blackness and Germanness as Means for Self-Ascription”
3:30-4:00: Coffee Break
4:00-6:00 Panel: Life Histories
Marion Kraft, “Challenges, Visions and Actions – Perspectives on the Black German Experience”
Gisella Thomas, “Du bist wer du bist - You Are Who You Are”
Rose Marie Äikäs, “Avoin Kirja (Open Book)”
Obenewaa Oduro-Opuni, “Intertwined Cultures: The African-German Perspective”
6:30: Dinner Banquet