Four universities in North Carolina are partnering to examine the intersections of African American and German culture in the twentieth century. The project entitled “From Harlem to Hamburg” involves Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and historically Black North Carolina Central University.
The semester-long project includes concerts, a film series, and an academic symposium. Students will be encouraged to write papers on this topic and selected works will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal andererseits: Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies.
Jonathan Wipplinger, an assistant professor of German at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, states, “The exchange between German and African American cultures is one that stretches back to at least the American Revolutionary War. Our project focuses on the last 100 years or so of this relationship. During this period, Germans began reading African American literature and poetry, listening to jazz and welcoming an increasing number of Black artists and performers.”
