Teaching Black German Studies in the US

Dr. Layne will share from her experience teaching students in the US about Germany and the Black Diaspora,enabling them to reflect about the specificities of race in the US, consider global connections and gain insight into the social construction of race, an otherwise abstract concept. Examples covered include W. E. B. DuBois’ time in Berlin (1892-94), the experience of African American soldiers in Germany following WWII and Audre Lorde’s influence on the Black German community in the 1980s.

Priscilla Layne is an associate professor of German at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture (2018). Currently, she is a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.