| Kommentar |
Slavery, colonialism and immigration have led to the dispersal of people of African descent and the formation of Black communities throughout the Western hemisphere. This cultural and demographic development, but also modes of exchange between Black communities have been theorized within the framework of the Black Diaspora. Using this framework as a theoretical lens, we will look at the African American and Black German community while especially focusing on the use of autobiographical writing within the process of community formation. Given the crucial significance of this genre within that process, we will investigate how works by Audre Lorde, Ika Hügel- Marshall and Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi engage in developing Black counter- discourses within their respective cultural contexts. In doing so, we will look at how intersections of various identity markers such as gender, race, and class frame the formation of these counter- discourses and play into the emergence of diasporic identities.
Primary works that I would ask the participants to purchase and read in advance will be:
1. Audre Lorde, Zami. A New Spelling of My Name (1982)
2. Ika Hügel Marshall, Daheim Unterwegs: Ein Deutsches Leben (2001)
A reader containing secondary texts and excerpts from Hans Jürgen Massaquoi’s Destined to Witness. Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany (1999) and its sequel Hänschen Klein, Ging Allein…Mein Weg in die Neue Welt (2004) will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
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