CFP: Black German Pop Culture: Identity, Media, and Creative Expression (Deadline: Feb. 28 - Black Diaspora Studies Network, 49th-annual GSA Conf., Sept. 25-28, 2025, Arlington, VA) (https://thegsa.org/conference/current-conference)
Arlington, VA
Organization: German Studies Association
Event: https://thegsa.org/conference/current-conference
Black German Pop Culture: Identity, Media, and Creative Expression
(Sponsored by the Black Diaspora Studies Network)
“Damit erfüllte die Hip-Hop-Kultur erstmals im großen
Stil ihren politischen Auftrag und wurde hierzulande
zu symbolischen Rettungsring für viele Schwarze Jugendliche,
inklusive mir selbst.“ (154)
- Natasha A. Kelly. Schwarz. Deutsch. Weiblich. Warum Feminismus mehr als Geschlechtergerechtigkeit fordern muss
Scholarly and public conversations pertaining to the significance of representation in popular media has detailed the power and impact simple recognition (being and feeling seen) in popular media can have on underrepresented individuals – especially when it comes to experiences of Afro-Nostalgia (Ahad-Legardy, 2021). The ease in circulated media, as well as the rise of virtual meeting and communing opportunities in the Digital Era, has enabled the fostering of international, intercultural, and inspirational networks of identity throughout the African diaspora. Or, as Francesca Sobande states, “Experiences of social media are often associated with an ability to transcend geo-cultural borders to connect and communicate with people in different parts of the world. However, social media encounters are shaped by various complex geographies, including Black geographies’” (Sobande 2022). The Black Diaspora Studies Network invites graduate students and scholars to reflect on the manifold overlapping influences popular media has on the continued development of social considerations and negotiations of power, representation, in/visibility, and experience in a German cultural context.
This panel aims to allocate the deserved time and space to engage in scholarly discourse investigating the many intersections of popular culture, media curation and circulation, power in representation, and Black German experiences. Subjects of exploration may include, but are not limited to:
- Black German Hip-Hop
- Blackness in Theater
- Social Media and Black Community
- Black Virtual Identity
- Afropean experience
- Visual Media and Black experience (ex. photography, documentary, historical fiction)
- Activism in Black cultural objects
- Black narratives in German-speaking Europe
- Popular Media and the Black German experience
- Circulation and depictions of Blackness in German news media
- Afro-futurism in a German context
- Community building within and across Black geographies
Please send a brief abstract (~350 words) and a short bio to Cynthia D. Porter (porter.506@osu.edu) and Peter Ogunniran (po2@williams.edu) by February 28, 2025. Please note that all participants must be members of the GSA at the time of panel submission in March 2025.
Cynthia Porter
