by Didem Uca | Nov 17, 2019 | WiGgies in Action
Deadline: January 15, 2020
WiG Out Week is an array of WiG-endorsed events happening anywhere and everywhere the week of March 23-28, 2020. Potential ideas include regional symposia, (virtual) lectures, film screenings, book discussions, feminist pedagogy workshops, or local community service or activism initiatives. All events, big and small, are welcome, as long as they are in keeping with the WiG Mission Statement. While we are unable to provide funding, we will promote the events on the website and social media and feature them in a future newsletter. We envision this week as an opportunity to carry on the spirit of WiG throughout the academic year, promote feminist German studies in your communities, and celebrate Women’s History Month.
To submit your event for consideration, please send a brief proposal (~200 words) to the second year Steering Committee members, Didem Uca (duca[at]colgate[.]edu) and Nicole Grewling (ngrewling2[at]washcoll[.]edu), by January 15, 2020. In your proposal, please include a title, date/location, description of the event, names of organizers/participants, and how many WiGgies you hope to have in attendance. All are welcome to submit. Let us know if you have any questions.
We thank you for your time, energy, and commitment to WiG. We look forward to receiving your proposals and WiGging out together next spring!
CfP as shareable Google Doc
by Didem Uca | Dec 28, 2018 | WiGgies in Action
Drs. Tiffany N. Florvil (University of New Mexico) and Vanessa D. Plumly (SUNY New Paltz) recently published the co-edited volume Rethinking Black German Studies: Approaches, Interventions and Histories (Peter Lang International Academic Publishers: Oxford, 2018). This volume assesses the current field of Black German Studies by exploring how periods of recent German history inform the present and future of the interdisciplinary field. The experiences of current generations of Black Germans, the construction and reimagining of race, the importance of cultural identity and power structures, and the opportunities for counter-narratives are considered.
Congratulations to the editors and all of the contributors on this phenomenal project! View the contents of the volume below.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Rethinking Black German Studies, Tiffany N. Florvil and Vanessa D. Plumly
Part I German and Austrian Literature and History
Hergestellt unter ausschließlicher Verwendung von Kakaobohnen deutscher Kolonien’: On Representations of Chocolate Consumption as a Colonial Endeavor, Silke Hackenesch
Here to Stay: Black Austrian Studies, Nancy P. Nenno
Lucia Engombe’s and Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo’s Autobiographical Accounts of Solidaritätspolitik and Life in the GDR as Namibian Children, Meghan O’Dea
Part II Theory and Praxis
Everyday Matters: Haunting and the Black Diasporic Experience, Kimberly Alecia Singletary
Black, People of Color and Migrant Lives Should Matter: Racial Profiling, Police Brutality and Whiteness in Germany, Kevina King
Part III Art and Performance
‘Africa in European Evening Attire’: Defining African American Spirituals and Western Art Music in Central Europe, 1870s–1930s, Kira Thurman
Re-Fashioning Postwar German Masculinity through Hip-Hop: The Man(l)y BlackWhite Identities of Samy Deluxe, Vanessa D. Plumly
Performing Oppression and Empowerment in real life: Deutschland, Jamele Watkins
Afterword, Michelle M. Wright
by Didem Uca | Dec 6, 2018 | WiGgies in Action
Hot off the presses! Check out the latest issue of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies on Precarity/Heimatlosigkeit (Vol. 54: 4). Co-edited by WiGgies Dr. Gabi Kathöfer and Dr. Beverly Weber, the special issue features work by WiGgies throughout. Find the complete table of contents below.
Precarity/Heimatlosigkeit, Special Issue Editors, Gabi Kathöfer and Beverly Weber
Introduction: Precarity/Heimatlosigkeit
Gabi Kathöfer, Beverly Weber
Heimat, Sustainability, Community: A Conversation with Karina Griffith and Peggy Piesche
Gabi Kathöfer, Beverly Weber
Belonging in Black and White: Race, Photography, and the Allure of Heimat in West German Gay Magazines from the 1950s
Bradley Boovy
Refiguring Red Vienna: Alternative Forms of Currency and Community in Michael Riebl’s Planet Ottakring
Susan Ingram
The Berlin Wall in Fernando Pérez’s La pared de las palabras (The Wall of Words): Refiguring Belonging in Precarity
Jennifer Ruth Hosek
Heimat as Communist Utopia or Leerstelle: Yoko Tawada’s Naked Eye
Jette Gindner
The Violence of Precarity and the Appeal of Routine in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, ging, gegangen
Gary L. Baker
Willkommenskultur Documented: Precarious Heimat in Can’t Be Silent (2013), Land in Sicht (2013), and Willkommen auf Deutsch (2015)
Maria Stehle
BOOK REVIEWS
Isabell Lorey. State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious
Kathrin Bower
Alexander G. Weheliye. Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human
Elisa Joy White
Jin Haritaworn. Queer Lovers and Hateful Others: Regenerating Violent Times and Places
Hester Baer
Fatima El-Tayeb. Undeutsch: Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft
Vanessa Plumly
Sara Lennox, ed. Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture
Kira Thurman
Ipek A Celik. In Permanent Crisis: Ethnicity in Contemporary European Media and Cinema
Berna Gueneli
by Didem Uca | Nov 13, 2018 | WiGgies in Action
Dr. Jennifer Askey co-authored an essay in the award-winning volume Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership (Eds. Shirley Lew and Baharak Yousefi, 2017). The essay, titled “One Library, Two Cultures,” is available here. Even though the article speaks directly to library experience, the lessons around leadership and culture are applicable to just most academic working environments. The article asks what kind of unit/department/institution would be the place that attracts a diverse workforce, engaged in diverse work?
Dr. Askey is Advisor for Leadership Development at the University of Alberta and presented on a fabulous panel on feminist mentorship practices at our last conference.
by Beverly Weber | Nov 13, 2018 | WiG Webinars, WiGgies in Action
Monday, November 26, 8pm-10pm EST (Note Date Change!)
Presenters: Nicole Coleman, Lisabeth Hock, Amy Young
Women in German members know from our work as scholars, teachers, providers of countless hours of service work, and activists, that forms of structural inequality disadvantage target groups while granting advantages and privileges to members of non-target groups. These forms of inequality include, but are not limited to: ableism, ageism, colorism, the elitism of the tenure system, heterosexism, racism, and sexism. They support often-invisible systems of power, privilege, and oppression that work at personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels to limit diversity, equity and inclusion in our classrooms and at our institutions.
Through our research and through curricular changes, WiG members have worked to make once invisible power systems visible, especially within the contexts of German culture and our colleges and universities. This WiG Webinar will focus on broader concepts and strategies related both to destabilizing the foundations of personal, interpersonal and institutional oppression and to supporting equity and inclusion for our students and colleagues. The Webinar will have two parts. Our theoretical section will address privilege and unconscious bias, allyship and its discontents, stereotype threat, inclusive classrooms, and diversifying faculty with intentionality. Our praxis section will address strategies for creating an inclusive classroom.
Participation limited to 100. Please Register at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zRjpKqaTSp-dpS6t6tPSRQ
Related materials available in: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZQI0pwLumJ6Z_SZ_rjkTGatVZ4MkGHGK
Questions to:
by Didem Uca | Oct 23, 2018 | WiGgies in Action
The Goethe-Institut Washington is initiating a social media campaign using the hashtag #FeminismToMe as part of an event series on the topic of feminism in the digital age. Beginning in late October, posts made to Instagram using this hashtag will be displayed in their gallery space in D.C. If you would like to post but use a private Instagram account, you can email a screenshot of your post to announcements[at]womeningerman.org.
