Labnet: Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries - Washington, DC 03/09

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult. AB]

From:    Mischa Honeck <mischa.honeck at hca.uni-heidelberg.de>

Martin Klimke (GHI Washington), Anne Kuhlma1nn-Smirnov (History
Department, University of Bremen), Mischa Honeck (Heidelberg Center for
American Studies, University of Heidelberg), Washington, DC
19.03.2009-21.03.2009, German Historical Institute
Deadline: 15.10.2008

Persons of African descent have been present in Europe throughout the
past millennium. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Africans
crossed the Mediterranean to Spain, Sicily, and Italy or made their way
to Europe via the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. In later
centuries, the system of transatlantic trade brought black people from
the different regions of the Americas to Europe. 

In Central Europe, African "court moors" became increasingly present
during the Early Modern Period and were an integral part of courtly
representation. As a result of exchange processes between Europe,
Africa, and the West Indies, the social roles of blacks in Europe and
European discourses on blacks diversified over time. By the beginning of
the eighteenth century, an increasing number of black Europeans lived in
middle-class households, especially those of retired colonial officials,
plantation owners or merchants residing in Europe. Others lived
independently as seamen or as guild members. Transatlantic chattel
slavery, however, fundamentally reconfigured Afro-European relations and
transformed perceptions of black people throughout the Atlantic World.
Over time, black people were increasingly referred to as "slaves" or
"negroes" instead of "moors," an older term associated with, among other
things, images of brave warriors that derived from the presence of black
soldiers in the armies of the Islamic Empire on the Iberian Peninsula
and humanist images of a Christian "land of the moors" ruled by a
mythical Prester John in Ethiopia. 

By the early nineteenth century, racist views on blacks had found broad
public acceptance in Europe. Scientific racism, a branch of ethnology
that began to infiltrate Western science from the 1840s onward, further
consolidated notions of black inferiority and was widely used to justify
the continued enslavement of African peoples. Simultaneously, proslavery
arguments were vehemently challenged by Enlightenment ideas of human
equality, which gained broader significance on both sides of the
Atlantic through the rise of various abolitionist and revolutionary
movements. This dialectical contest between racial egalitarianism and
white supremacy persisted well into the early twentieth century, when
the latter reemerged forcefully in the guise of European imperialism. 

The conference "Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries" will
retrace these processes of change and revaluation from the eleventh
century to the beginning of World War I. Particular emphasis will be
laid on the interactions between blacks of various origins (the
Americas, the Caribbean, Byzantine Empire, Africa, or born in Europe)
and people in the German-speaking parts of Europe.

Researchers of all disciplines are invited to discuss continuities and
ruptures in this history of mutual perception and contact: migration,
art and court historians, American, German and African studies as well
as scholars from the field of cultural studies, literature, sociology,
musicology, linguistics, etc. 

Possible conference topics include: 

1. Geopolitical and social spaces of communication and interaction:
Which geographical areas and groups of individuals or social classes
were involved in processes of exchange? What kind of action repertoires
did these spaces leave or offer to people of color? 
2. Perception and appropriation of African culture, art, music, etc. and
their representations in various contexts (e.g. European court cultures,
literature, art production).
3. Altering influence of religious, philosophical, and scientific
discourses on modes of Afro-European contacts. 
4. Race/Racism vs. egalitarianism as discourse and social practice in
the African-German encounter. 

Please send a proposal of no more than 500 words and a brief CV to
Martin Klimke at klimke at ghi-dc.org. 

The deadline for submission is October 15, 2008. Participants will be
notified by mid-November.

The conference, held in English, will focus on discussing
5,000-6,000-word, precirculated papers (due February 1, 2009). Expenses
for travel and accommodation will be covered.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mischa Honeck
Hauptstr. 120
69117 Heidelberg
06221/543878

mischa.honeck at hca.uni-heidelberg.de

http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=9091 

++++++++++



*
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.