Imagining the Black Diaspora: On the Circulation and Competition of Literary Picture-Making across the Americas

Organized by Dustin Breitenwischer (RA 1) and Jasmin Wrobel (RA 4)

The international conference "Imagining the Black Diaspora" brings together authors, comic artists, a comic translator, and scholars from the fields of American Studies, African American Studies, Latin American Studies, and Media Studies to discuss the circulation and distribution, the cultural and political economies, the aesthetic diversity and the community-shaping effects of pictures and imagery in Black diasporic literature across the Americas. The conference will focus on a wide array of literary practices – ranging from graphic neo-slave narratives and photographic authorial self-representation to depictions of Black youth in US American children’s literature – to investigate historic and current (dis-)positions of Black authorship, subaltern cultural resistance, racist stereotyping, and literary market competition. Thus seeking to create a dialogue between the spheres of cultural production and academic reflection, “Imagining the Black Diaspora” will be divided into two interrelated parts that will take place at two different venues in Berlin: on Thursday, January 9, the participants will meet at Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB) to discuss the literary works of Birgit Weyhe (Germany), André Diniz and Marcelo D’Salete (both of Brazil) with the authors and translator Lea Hübner. On Friday, January 10, the discussion will be brought to the FU Berlin where it will unfold as a day-long academic conference with speakers Herman Bennett (CUNY), Dustin Breitenwischer (FU Berlin/EXC 2020), Ana Merino (Iowa), Nina Mickwitz (London), Robert Reid-Pharr (Harvard), Daniel Stein (Siegen), and Jasmin Wrobel (FU Berlin/EXC 2020).

The event will be in English and it will be documented by comic artist Panchulei (Francisca Cárcamo).

Time & Location

Jan 09, 2020 - Jan 10, 2020

9 January at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin
Am Sandwerder 5
14109 Berlin;

10 January at the Lateinamerika-Institut
Freie Universität Berlin
Rüdesheimer Straße 54
14197 Berlin
Room 201

Further Information

Should you have questions concerning the event, please contact Dustin Breitenwischer (dustin.breitenwischer@fu-berlin.de) or Jasmin Wrobel (jasmin.wrobel@fu-berlin.de).