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Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Black sensemaking | Discretion
Grace A. Musila
Department of African Literature
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
This lecture thinks through the logic of discretion as a practice and ethic in many Black societies. Here, I zone in on nodes of Black cultural practices as well as literary|artistic representations, to track how discretion functions in these communities’ modes of sense-making. Although adjacent to secrecy — a concern which has received extensive scholarly attention — discretion encompasses and exceeds secrecy in a range of ways. I make a case for discretion as a keyword in African studies which has been variously overlooked or miscrecognised in academic discourse for two reasons: first, owing to discretion’s complicity in the production of harm in when it serves to maintain silence around harmful practices; and second, due to the academy’s fetish of knowing, which assumes that every aspect of African lifeworlds should be knowable, legible. I use these twin factors behind discretion’s misrecognition as a point of departure to think through discretion’s place in Black sense-making by setting its complicity in harm, in conversation with its role in the making and preservation of personhood in Black communities.
The paper is interested in the implications of the tension between the academy’s investment in knowing as a necessary good; and discretion’s invitation to uphold opacity in certain contexts, as a life-making practice. What are the implications of discretion’s invitation to uphold illegibility for the knowledge project, broadly speaking? How can we repurpose discretion as an ethic and practice of Black sense-making without colluding in harm production?
Prof. Dr. Henning Melber in conversation with Dr. Cassandra Mark-Thiesen and Prof. Dr Stefan Ouma
The Long Shadow of German Colonialism, Amnesia, Denialism and Revisionism
A no-holds-barred account of how German society struggles with its colonial legacy.
Henning Melber
From 1884 to 1914, the world’s fourth-largest overseas colonial empire was that of the German Kaiserreich. Yet this fact is little known in Germany and the subject remains virtually absent from most school textbooks.
While debates are now common in France and Britain over the impact of empire on former colonies and colonising societies, German imperialism has only more recently become a topic of wider public interest. In 2015, the German government belatedly and half-heartedly conceded that the extermination policies carried out over 1904–8 in the settler colony of German South West Africa (now Namibia) qualify as genocide. But the recent invigoration of debate on Germany’s colonial past has been hindered by continued amnesia, denialism and a populist right endorsing colonial revisionism. A recent campaign against postcolonial studies sought to denounce and ostracise any serious engagement with the crimes of the imperial age.
Henning Melber presents an overview of German colonial rule and analyses how its legacy has affected and been debated in German society, politics and the media. He also discusses the quotidian experiences of Afro-Germans, the restitution of colonial loot, and how the history of colonialism affects important institutions such as the Humboldt Forum.
This mini-workshop supports you in putting an idea into writing, sharpen it, get some feedback and turn it to a guiding question for your next academic writing project. You will also get an idea of how (writing) coaching and copy editing can support you. All it takes is a little curiosity and 30 minutes of your time.
What will this workshop be like?
In a tried-and-tested 3-step approach, we will start from any of your ideas or inspirations – whether it's that draft paper in your drawer or an idea that popped up during one of the panel discussions you just attended. You will then dive deeper into your idea and be invited to look at it from multiple angles. Finally, we will encourage you to turn your idea into a guiding question that will keep you going and inspire your future writing process.
Who are we?
Dr* Joh Sarre holds a PhD in anthropology & African studies. Joh coaches academics to achieve their self-set goals and offers on- and offline academic writing workshops.
Maike Meurer (M.A.), also anthropologist and African scholar, is a freelance editor. Maike proof-reads and edits academic texts and helps writers convey their ideas confidently and convincingly in their texts.
Of Worlds and Artworks
A Relational View on Artistic Practices from Africa and the Diaspora
Editors: Ute Fendler, Marie-Anne Kohl, Gilbert Shang Ndi, Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, Clarissa Vierke
The present volume brings together contributions which explore artworks – including literature, visual arts, film and performances – as dynamic sites of worlding. It puts emphasis on the processes of creating or doing worlds, implying movement as opposed to the boundary drawing of area studies. From such a processual perspective, Africa is not a delineated area, but emerges in a variety of relations which can reach across the continent, but also the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic or Europe.
Contributors are: Thierry Boudjekeu, Elena Brugioni, Ute Fendler, Sophie Lembcke, Gilbert Ndi Shang, Samuel Ndogo, Duncan Tarrant, Kumari Issur, CJ Odhiambo, Michaela Ott, Peter Simatei, Clarissa Vierke, Chinelo J. Enemuo.
A decade after the United Nations General Assembly declared the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) to promote the rights and recognition of people of African descent and to combat discrimination and racism, the world appears to be witnessing a weakening of democratic institutions. Disputes over the protection of human rights have risen to the top of media headlines. At the same time, cities such as Bayreuth are actively confronting entanglements with an African colonial past.
In this keynote, Mactar Ndoye, former Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in charge of the Decade for People of African Descent, takes stock of the achievements and failures of the past ten years. He will also discuss expectations for the "second decade" currently under discussion. Finally, he will reveal plans underway to establish a UN network for African studies.
Zentrum