News
Upcoming Public Lecture: Angela N Parker (Mercer, Atlanta)
As part of the workshop “Ecologies in Black Liberation,” hosted by the DFG-Network “Bridging Black Freedom Struggles,” Rev. Dr. Angela Parker will give a public keynote on Black Liberation:
Change of Date:
Thu. March 16, 2023, 9:30 am, Amerikahaus Munich
Dr. Angela N. Parker, (New Testament and Greek, Mercer University, Atlanta)
“The Empire MUST Fail: Re-Imagining Black Ecological Futures with Paul's Creation Language in Romans 8”
Through a nuanced reading of Romans 8:18-24, Parker re-imagines what black ecological futures must entail as we engage Paul's language of solidarity with creation. In previous verses, Paul has shown solidarity across the family of God and other identities (including Creation). However, in taking Paul further, Parker asks how contemporary Jesus followers should move forward in these solidarities today? Can movements that claim to care for Creation ignore the continued "groaning" that Black Lives Matter? Further, how do movements bring about the failure of Empire so that marginalized Black bodies AND Creation experience transformation and move out of "groaning?" For all of this to happen, Empires must fail. How do we bring about that failure?
The workshop and the lecture are supported by the DFG and the BAA.
For more information and to register please visit:
https://www.amerikahaus.de/en/exhibitions-and-events/2023-03-14-angela-parker?appointment=360
Contact: nicole.schneider@ku.de
Upcoming Guest Lecture
SCOTT ZUKOWSKI (Graz University)
“Freedom’s Journal and the Reimagining of Human Hierarchies around the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic”
February 1, 2023, 10:30 am, KGA-102.
This project studies various genres of texts of Freedom’s Journal (the first Black-owned and operated newspaper in the US) that challenged racial, gendered, and geographic hierarchies prevalent in early nineteenth-century Euro-American culture. I analyze poetry, fiction, excerpts, witticisms, travel narratives, letters, and historical meditations—sometimes printed specifically for the Journal and sometimes reprinted from other sources—studying the way that the paper’s editors strategically anthologized writings from a variety of genres, countries, continents, cultures, and contexts, in order to present a radically different view of race, gender, and humanity: one that challenged and critiqued the customary Western hierarchy that identified white Euro-Americans as superior to people of color and other marginalized peoples.
Theater Trip to Munich: Tony Kushner's "Angels in America"
The department of American studies organized a theater trip to Munich on December 18, 2022 to see a production of Tony Kushner's landmark play Angels in America at the Residenztheater Munich. This production was directed by acclaimed Australian director Simon Stone.
Reading and Conversation with Deborah Miranda, author of "Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir" on Tuesday, December 13, 6.00 pm (Zoom)
Tuesday, December 13, 6..00 pm (Zoom): Deborah Miranda of Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation, the author of Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, will read from her work and talk to the students of René Dietrich's course "21st Century Indigenous Literature and Media" on her pathbreaking Indigenous memoir about Californian Indigenous history and ongoing struggles which was newly released for an expanded 10th anniversary edition. Learn more about her work and join us here via Zoom: https://kuei.zoom.us/j/65688620784?pwd=RjhGemFqbjZ3Vlk2VDRUd3NIL0ZLQT09
New research network (DFG)
The research network "The Cultural Politics of Reconciliation" (Dr. Nathalie Aghoro und Dr. Katharina Fackler, Bonn University) was approved by the DFG in the autumn of 2022.
Guest Lecture: “Confronting Monstrous Pasts in Walker, Brown, and Greene’s Comic Book Series Bitter Root”
PROF. DR. DANIEL STEIN (Siegen University)
December 9, 2022, 2 pm, UA-141.
Issues of Black history and representation have been at the forefront of US literature for many decades, but in the realm of comic book production, they were largely ignored for the longest time. This began to change with the publication of Tom Feelings’ haunting series of silent images about the Atlantic slave trade, The Middle Passage: White Ships, Black Cargo (1995) and with the mainstream appeal of Kyle Baker’s biography of the slave revolutionary, Nat Turner (2008), and Jeremy Love’s exploration of the Southern gothic in Bayou (2009/2010). Based on these early attempts to visualize the Black past, this talk analyzes the graphic depiction of African American history in the contemporary series Bitter Root (Walker, Brown, and Greene, Image Comics, 2018-2021), where racist hatred manifests itself in the creation of monsters. I will argue that the series plays into comic book tropes of monstrous superhuman creatures and adapts elements from African American folklore to interrogate the traumatic legacies of anti-Black violence. In reshaping comic book graphics and discourse, Bitter Root is an important contribution to the creation of Afrodiasporic interventions into US popular culture.
Mid-term Conference "Here, There, and Somewhere in Between: Placing, Practicing, Configuring"
For more information about the mid-term conference of the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg and the conference program visit the website of the research group or here.
2022 BAA Dissertation Award goes to Nicole Schneider
This year's Dissertation Award of teh Bavarian American Academy was awarded to Nicole Schneider for her dissertation „Visual Protest, Viral Images and Virtual Participation: Protest and Photography in the Contemporary Movement for Black Lives.”
Click here for the BAA's report on the ceremony and the project.
DFG-Research Position Grant for Dr. Nathalie Aghoro
Congratulations to our colleague Dr. Nathalie Aghoro for receiving a Temporary DFG Research Position Grant for her research project "Common Grounds: Social Justice and Cultural Practice in Shared Places."
Official Opening of the DFG-Research Training Group "Practicing Place"
The Reseach Training Group "Practicing Place" was officially launched on July 15, 2021. For KU's press release click here.
Election of the BAA-Board of Directors
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schmidt was elected as Deputy Director of the Bavarian America Academy.
For more information on the BAA click here.
New Exchange Agreement with Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA
Website Weber State University: https://www.weber.edu
Department of English Language and Literature: https://www.weber.edu/English
For more information, please contact the KU International Office: student.exchange(at)ku.de or outgoing(at)ku.de