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Africa, America, Europe
Black Atlantic - Platform 1:
Crossings
How Do/Don't We Remember
17.09.2004 19:00
26.09.2004
Black Atlantic
The opening weekend has been designed to provide an overview of the themes and topics to be discussed in the coming weeks. The discussion between Édouard Glissant and Paul Gilroy brings together two widely acknowledged experts in the "Black Atlantic" discourse, who will be presenting their perspectives on this imaginary but simultaneously real space. On the following day, renowned Cuban poet Nancy Morejón opens the literary "Black Atlantic" programme. The project's first Platform comprises a conference and literature programme combining various perspectives around the core concerns. The Symposium on W.E.B. Du Bois, Afro-American sociologist and philosopher, considers his significance today and his relationship to Germany. Further lectures and discussions then focus on Black history as a marginalized culture of memory and how to return it to the centre of debate. This is a crucial issue in Germany particularly since the German colonial period and its consequences have not yet been thoroughly addressed. For a number of years now, increasing numbers of Black scholars have been tackling this concern, trying to counteract the long-term effects of the hegemony of knowledge validation, and they present their views in a two-part Symposium on a critical historiography. The discussion on "Becoming Black Europe" (Schwarzes Europa) takes a historical and contemporary standpoint to question the future: How can we define a Black Europe? How could Europe become Black in the 21st century?
The Literature Programme primarily focuses on women writers with poet Nancy Morejón, and two representatives of the young Black movement in literature, novelist Jackie Kay and short story writer Marie-Hélène Laforest.