Instructor: Anna Schrade

Office hours: Thursday 14:00

Tuesdays, Thursdays 12:30-1:50 pm

Paris, the capital of the former French colonial empire, and famously known as “Ville lumière,” in the double sense of “city of light” and “center of the European Enlightment,” has long been a contact zone. It became what it is today not least through diverse currents of migration and transcultural encounters between Africa, the Black Diaspora and Europe. This seminar will trace these histories and encounters, which have often been silenced and erased within narratives of modernity, as we explore Paris as a site of exchange and discontinuity, translation and transition, an intersection of concealed, sometimes illegal or enforced encounters between Africa and Europe. We will critically read historical documents, literary examples, ethnographic reports and visual material (film documents, documentary film, “ciné beur”, artist videos) to explore the social and cultural history of “Black Paris”: from the African soldiers who fought for France during World War I, via African American artists, intellectuals, musicians and writers who lived and worked in Paris, up to contemporary social movements like the “sans papiers” and ‘les indigènes de la république”. We will also question and challenge dominant national self-representations and the national imaginary of a colorblind French nation-state and the principles of inclusion upon which it is built.

To understand the historic continuities between French and European colonialism and contemporary social inequalities in France and Europe.

To examine the workings of contemporary racism, in particular, colorblind racism in France.

To investigate the relationship between race, nation, class and gender.

To develop a competency in African Diaspora Studies and the emerging scholarly field of Black European Studies.

To develop a competency in the core ideas of Postcolonial Studies and Critical Race Theory.

Sep 13 Race in France I (Discussion of readings)

• Stam, Robert und Ella Shohat. 1994. Race and Racism. In: Unthinking Eurocentrism - Multiculturalism and the Media. pp.18 – 25.

• Chapman Herrick and Laura L. Frader (eds.) 2004. Introduction. Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference. pp. 1-19.

Sep 15 Race in France II (Discussion of readings)

• Stovall, Tyler. 2006. Race and the Making of the Nation: Blacks in Modern France. In: Gomez, Michael A. (ed.) Diasporic Africa: A Reader. pp. 200 – 219.

• Fredrickson, George M. 2008. Diverse Republics: French and American Responses to Racial Pluralism. In: Diverse Nations: Explorations in the History of Racial and Ethnic Pluralism. pp.170 – 184.

Colonial Settings: Staging Empire in the “City of Light”

Sep 20 Human Zoos and the Interwar Colonial Expositions (Exerpts from the film „Zoo Humains“ by Pascal Blanchard 2005 and discussion of readings)

• 
  Blanchard, Pascal et al. (eds.) 2008. From Scientific Racism to Popular and Colonial Racism in France and the West. In: Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires. pp.104 – 113.
  
• 
  Blanchard, Pascal and Bancel, Nicolas 2000. Human Zoos. Racist Theme Parks for European Colonialists. In: Le Monde diplomatique, pp.1-7.
  
• 
  Hale, Dana. S. 2008. La Force Noir. In: Races on Display: French Representations of Colonized People 1886-1940. pp. 91-117.
  

• 
  Echenberg, Myron.1991. Colonial Conscripts. The Tirialleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857 – 1960. pp. 1-6; 47-104 and 164-170.
  
• 
  Berliner, Brett. A. 2002. Tirailleurs Sénégalais and the Making of the Grand Enfant. In: Ambivalent Desire: The Exotic Black Other in Jazz Age France. pp. 9-37.
  

Film screening: „Camp de Thiaroye” by Sembène Ousmane 1988 (Evening Session) T.B.A. (Friday. Sept 23. at 5 p.m. ???)

Sep 27 The German ‘Black Shame’ campaign against African Soldiers in the French Army.

• 
  Wigger, Iris 2010. 'Black Shame' — the campaign against 'racial degeneration' and female degradation in interwar Europe. In: Race & Class January 2010 51. pp. 33-46.
  
• 
  Alain Locke: "The Black Watch on the Rhine" In: Opportunity, December 1925, pp. 240.
  
• 
  Claude McKay: “Once more the Germans face Black Troups,” Opportunity, November 1939. pp. 324.
  

Transnational Encounters - Modernist Art and Popular Entertainment in Jazz Age Paris

Sep 29 “Negrophilia” (Discussion of readings)

• 
  Clifford, James. 1989. “Negrophilia”. In: Holier, Denis (ed.) A New History of French Literature, pp. 901-908.
  

• Jules Rosette, Benetta. 1998. An Uneasy Collaboration: The Dialogue between French Anthropology and Black Paris. In: Black Paris: The African Writers’ Landscape. pp.1- 42.

Oct 4 Josephine Baker (Student – presentation)

• 
  Stovall, Tyler. 2008. “The New Woman and the New Empire: Josephine Baker and Changing Views of Femininity in Interwar France”, In: The Scholar and Feminist Online, Double Issue: Fall 2007/Spring 2008. pp.1-13.
  

• 
  Jules Rosette, Benetta. 2007. Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image. Introduction.
  
• 
  Ezra, Elizabeth, 2000. The Colonial Unconscious. Race and Culture in Interwar France, Ithaca/London. Chapter 4: pp. 75-97.
  
• 
  Ezra, Elisabeth 2008. Josephine Baker, Transnational Star—the French Way)
  

• 
  Alain Locke: "More of the New Negro in Art" In: Opportunity (December 1925) and Locke’s introduction to “The New Negro”. (see: Dawahare, Anthony. 2003. The Specter of Radicalism in Alain Locke’s “The New Negro”. In: Bill V.Mullen and James Smethurst (eds.) Left of The Color Line. Race, Radicalism, and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States.)
  
• 
  Langston Hughes: Poems: “White Man” and “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret”.
  
• 
  Claude McKay: Poem: “Paris” and “Once more the Germans face Black Troups,” Opportunity, November 1939. 324.
  
• 
  James Baldwin in Paris
  

• 
  Countee Cullen: “Letters from Paris” and Poems: “To France”, “To Certain Critics”
  
• 
  “Bricktop”- making place for African Americans in Paris, Montmartre.
  
• 
  Africanism in the art work of Nancy Elisabeth Prophet, Augusta Savage, Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley.
  

• Stovall, Tyler. 1996. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Chapter 2 & 3, pp. 25-118.

• Michel Fabre, From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840-1980.)

Oct 18 Négritude I (Discussion of readings)

• 
  Lewis, Shireen K. 2006. What was Négritude. In: Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité. pp. 23-55.
  
• 
  Lewis, Shireen K. 2006. Gendering Négritude: Paulette Nardal’s Contribution to the Birth of Modern Francophone Literature. In: Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité. pp. 55-70.
  

• 
  Aimé Césaire: “Discours on Colonialism”. (see: Rebecca Reiland, Africana Critical Theory – Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition. 2009)
  
• 
  Paulette and Jane Nardal: “Black Internationalism”, “Exotic Puppets”, “The Awakening of Race Conciousness among Black Students”. In: Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denea. 2002. Negritude Women.
  

Oct 25 Negritude III. Student presentations (15 min.) on selected writers for

example on:

• 
  Jean Paul Sartre: “Orphée Noir” (Black Orpheus), Introduction to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1948. (see: Manthia Diawara, “On Sartre’s Black Orpheus” 1996. pp.1-5.)
  
• 
  Frantz Fanon: “The lived Experiance of the Black Man” In: Black Skin, White Masks, 1952. (see: Max Silverman Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks: New Interdisciplinary Essays. 2005 )
  

“Presence Africaine” and Neo-Colonial Predicaments

• 
  Jules Rosette, Benetta.1989. Antithetical Africa: The Conferences and Festivals of Présence Africaine. In: Black Paris. The African Writers’ Landscape. pp. 49-79.
  

• 
  Stam, Robert. 2003. Fanon, Algeria and the Cinema: The Politics of Identification. In: Stam, Robert und Ella Shohat (eds.) Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality, and Transnational Media. pp. 18-42.
  

Nov 3 advising day, no class

Nov 8 Visions and Tensions of Frenchness (Discussion of reading)

• 
  Shepard, Todd. 2009. Excluding the Harkis from Repatriate Status, Excluding Muslim Algerians from French Identity. In: Gafaiti, Hafid et.al. (eds.) Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World. pp. 94-114.
  
• 
  Camiscoli, Elisa 2009. Race Making and Race Mixing in the Early Twentith Century Immigration Debate. In: In: Hafid Gafaiti et.al (eds.) Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World. pp. 53-70.
  

• 
  Freedman, Jane. 2003. Conceptions of Immigration and Citizenship. In: Immigration and Insecurity in France. pp. 31-53.
  
• 
  Macmaster, Neil. 2009. Shantytown Republics. Algerian Migrants and the Culture of Space in the Bidonvilles. In: Hafid Gafaiti et.al (eds.) Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World. pp.73-93.
  
• 
  Durmelat, Sylvie. 2000. Transmission and Mourning in Mémoires d’Immigrés: l’Héritage Maghrébin : Yamina Benguigui as ‘Memory Entrepreneuse.’ In: Freedman, Jane and Carrie Tarr (eds.) Women, Immigration and Identities in France. pp. 171- 188.
  

Assignment: Watch the film “Memoires d’Immigrées” by Yamina Benguigui (1997), (Part I, Part II and III, 50 min each)

Nov 15 The “Sans Papier” Movement (Discussion of film and readings or Student Presentation?)

• 
  Freedman, Jane. 2003. The Development of Immigration Policy in a European Context. In: Immigration and Insecurity in France. pp. 31-53.
  
• 
  Freedman, Jane and Carrie Tarr. 2000. The Sans-Papières: An Interview with Madjiguène Cissé. In: Women, Immigration and Identities in France. pp. 29- 38.
  
• 
  Waters, Sarah. 2003. Right for all Immigrants: the sans-papiers. In: Social Mouvements in France. Towards a New Citizenship. 82-94.
  
• 
  Freedman, Jane. 2003. The Sans-Papiers Movement: Mobilization through Illegality. In: (ed.) Immigration and Insecurity in France. pp. 71-87.
  

• 
  Stovall, Tyler. 2003. From Red Belt to Black Belt. Race, Class and Urban Marginality in Twentieth-Century Paris. In: Peabody, Sue and Tyler Stovall (eds.) The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. pp. 361- 369.
  
• 
  Cooper, Frederick 2009. Fom Imperial Inclusion to Republican Exclusion? France’s Ambiguous Potswar Trajectory. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp. 91 – 117.
  
• 
  Boubeker Ahmed 2009. Outsiders in the French Melting Pot: The Public Construction of Invisibility for Visible Minorities. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp. 70-88.
  

Assignment: Response Paper due Nov. 22^nd!

Nov 22 The 2005 Uprisings in the French Banlieues (Discussion of readings and film)

• 
  Lapeyronnie, Didier 2009. Primitive Rebellion in the French Banlieues: On the Fall 2005 Riots. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp. 21- 46
  
• 
  Mbembe, Achille 2009 The Republic and Its Beast: On the Riots in the French Banlieues. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp. 47 - 54
  

• 
  Gondola, Didier 2009. The Othering and Indigenization of Blacks and Beurs within the French Republic. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp.146 – 166
  
• 
  Achille, Mbembe 2009. Figures of Multiplicity: Can France Reinvent Its Identity? In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp.55 – 69.
  

Dec 1 Les Indigènes de la République and the Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires (CRAN) (Student Presentation or discussion of readings)

• 
  Camus, Jean-Yves. 2006. The Commemoration of Slavery in France and the Emergence of a Black Political Consciousness. In: The European Legacy, Vol 11, No.6. pp. 647-655.
  
• 
  Vergès, Francoise 2006. The African Slave Trade and Slavery. Blind Spots in French Thought. In: european institute for progressive cultural policies (eipcp): http://eipcp.net/transversal/1206/verges/en
  
• 
  Bernault, Florence 2009. Colonial Syndrome: French Modern and the Deceptions of History. In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp. 120-145.
  
• 
  A Call to Action: „We are the Natives of the Republic!“ January 18,2005 In: Charles Tshimanga et.al (eds.) Frenchness and the African Diaspora. Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France. pp.277-281
  

• 
  El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2008. The Birth of a European Public: Migration, Postnationality, and Race in the Uniting of Europe. In: American Quarterly - Volume 60, Number 3, September 2008, pp. 649-670.
  
• 
  Balibar, Étienne. 2004. Droit de Cité or Apartheid? In: We, the people of Europe? Reflections of Transnational Citizenship. pp. 31-51.