New Books in German Studies

Damani Partridge, "Blackness As a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin" (U California Press, 2022)


Listen Later

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color.

Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. 

Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

New Books in German StudiesBy Marshall Poe

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

32 ratings


More shows like New Books in German Studies

View all
In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,426 Listeners

History Extra podcast by Immediate Media

History Extra podcast

3,187 Listeners

Great Lives by BBC Radio 4

Great Lives

475 Listeners

The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

The LRB Podcast

293 Listeners

The History of English Podcast by Kevin Stroud

The History of English Podcast

6,386 Listeners

Political Fix by Financial Times

Political Fix

141 Listeners

Dan Snow's History Hit by History Hit

Dan Snow's History Hit

4,647 Listeners

The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

The New Yorker Radio Hour

6,693 Listeners

Cold War Conversations by Ian Sanders

Cold War Conversations

456 Listeners

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat by New York Times Opinion

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

6,945 Listeners

WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk by Goalhanger

WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk

1,301 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

13,114 Listeners

What's Left of Philosophy by Lillian Cicerchia, Owen Glyn-Williams, Gil Morejón, and William Paris

What's Left of Philosophy

263 Listeners

History of the Germans by Dirk Hoffmann-Becking

History of the Germans

430 Listeners

Gone Medieval by History Hit

Gone Medieval

1,762 Listeners