Transatlantic Cultural Exchange

By Katharina Gerund,

Book cover of Transatlantic Cultural Exchange: African American Women's Art and Activism in West Germany

Book description

From Josephine Baker's performances in the 1920s to the 1970s solidarity campaigns for Angela Davis, from Audre Lorde as "mother" of the Afro-German movement in the 1980s to the literary stardom of 1993 Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Germans have actively engaged with African American women's art and activism throughout the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Transatlantic Cultural Exchange as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This impressively well-researched study focuses on the reception of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker in post-World War II Germany. Although it only marginally references the Black German perspective (for that I recommend among others the work of Tina Campt, Tiffany Florvil, and Fatima El-Tayeb), it skillfully shows how Europeans perceive notions of race and racism through the prism of (African) Americanization.

Gerund illuminates particularly how White Germans’ interactions with (Black) America can provide pivotal insights into the meaning of ‘Whiteness’ and ‘citizenship’ in a European national context. This matters, because this in turn shapes (mis)understandings of…

From Laura's list on Black Europe.

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