This annual AHR Conversation focuses on the issues and historiographic debates raised by the term “Black Internationalism.” Participants Monique Bedasse, Kim D. Butler, Carlos Fernandes, Dennis Laumann, Tejasvi Nagaraja, Benjamin Talton, and Kira Thurman bring a wide array of interests and areas of expertise to bear on the origins, evolution, and meaning of the concept of Black Internationalism; its application within Africa, the U.S., and the African diaspora more generally; and its relationship to gender, nationalism, and anticolonialism. In addition to tracing the deep roots of this framework for writing the history of Black resistance to slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy as global phenomena, they insist on seeing Black Internationalism from multiple points on the compass. Perspectives derived from the history—and intellectual production—of Africa, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean prove just as important, if not more so, than those emanating from the United States.

A Black German renaissance? after an entire century of Black German activism and creativity, it seems like never before have Black Germans been so visible to a global audience. Pop stars such as Zoe Wees have taken over the music charts in europe, and actors such as florence Kasumba and Zazie Beetz appear on the big and small screens in blockbuster films such as Black Panther and in tv shows such as Atlanta, Tatort, and Deutschland 86. sharon dodua Otoo and Olivia Wenzel have published novels with major German publishing houses, and filmmakers like Mo asumang and Branwen Okpako have premiered works at international film festivals to great acclaim. representing one of the fastest growing populations in German-speaking europe, Black Germans are not only part of Germany's present but also part of Germany's past. 1 scholars dedicated to documenting, analyzing, and exploring the political, intellectual, social, and cultural work and legacies of Black people in German-speaking europe have also become more present in academic institutions.Make no mistake: after decades of teaching, research, and agitation for institutional change in both north american and German academic institutions, Black scholars and those committed to researching Black people, experiences, and cultures within the context of German-speaking europe still face marginalization. With the first-ever issue of German Quarterly dedicated to Black Germany, it has become clear that Black German thought and praxis are becoming ever more vital to academic scholarship. nonetheless, the purpose of this special issue is not only to showcase some of the vibrant work underway in our field but also to point out the ongoing systemic challenges that still prevent the majority of students and teachers, as well as wider publics, from having engaged with a Black German text or even knowing of a Black German figure.Our aim in this introduction, therefore, is not to reiterate well-known narratives among scholars in Black German studies that usually begin with the 1986 publication of Farbe bekennen. 2 rather, we seek to accomplish two discrete goals: first, to name outright the institutional structures that have shaped the field of Black German studies since the mid-to-late twentieth century and, in so doing, to identify how systemic racism in both europe and the United states has de- 359The German Quarterly 95.4 (fall 2022) ©2022, american association of teachers of German

When African American concert singers began to perform German lieder in central Europe in the 1920s, white German and Austrian listeners were astounded by the veracity and conviction of their performances. How had they managed to sing like Germans? This article argues that black performances of German music challenged audiences' definitions of blackness, whiteness, and German music during the transatlantic Jazz Age in interwar central Europe. Upon hearing black performers masterfully sing lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and others, audiences were compelled to consider whether German national identity was contingent upon whiteness. Some listeners chose to call black concert singers “Negroes with white souls,” associating German music with whiteness by extension. Others insisted that the singer had sounded black and therefore un-German. Race was ultimately the filter through which people interpreted these performances of the Austro-German musical canon. This article contributes to a growing body of scholarship that investigates how and when audiences began to associate classical music with whiteness. Simultaneously, it offers a musicological intervention in contemporary discourses that still operate under the assumption that it is impossible to be both black and German.

No abstract

This chapter explains the interplay of race, gender, and opera after 1945. Narratives of post-war West German and Austrian cultural life frequently show Anglo-American actors as the primary agents of change. Following the Holocaust and the Nazi racial state, the Allied powers pushed policies to drastically alter the function of German musical culture. Longstanding notions of Blackness shaped the production and reception of operas featuring Black singers in West Germany and Austria. The chapter references Annabelle Bernard, the first Black woman to be part of a German ensemble, who indicated the lack of opportunity in America made her stay in Europe to sing.