Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-239) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Invisible and invented archives -- Part I: Documenting the past: The artist as witness -- Outside the frame: Josef Nassy's visual diary of internment in Nazi Germany -- Broken citizenship: Survivor memoirs by Hans J. Massaquoi, Theodor Michael, and John William -- Part II: Imagining the past: The artist as historian -- Jazz fiction and the Holocaust: Testimonial objects in the novels of John A. Williams and Esi Edugyan -- Performing to survive: "Queen of the Trumpet" Valaida Snow in fiction, drama, and graphic narrative -- Postmemorial landscapes of Black Europe: Maud Sulter's alpine photomontages -- Coda: Dancing out history in Oxana Chi's "Durch Gärten Tanzen".
Summary:
"During the Third Reich people of African descent were viewed as a threat to the health and purity of Germany. Black Europeans suffered a variety of forms of persecution including ostracism, forced sterilization, incarceration in concentration camps, medical experimentation, and execution. Blacks in occupied Europe represented a variety of backgrounds including many of whom were of dual African and European heritage; African, Caribbean and African American expatriates who traveled to Europe in search of educational and employment opportunities; and colonial and African-American troops. Among the African American emigrés were a number of jazz musicians, who chose to stay in Europe when the war broke out rather than return to the segregated American society. In Making History Visible, Sarah Phillips Casteel explores a wide range of transnational literary and artistic works that depicted the experiences of Black victims of the Third Reich. In the first half of the book, she examines testimonial artworks produced either during the war or retrospectively by survivors of the Nazi regime, such as the visual diaries of Josef Nassy as well as three autobiographical accounts by German and French men of African descent. In the second half, Casteel turns her attention to later literature and visual art that produced fictional testimonies and archival objects that integrate the experiences of Black victims into the collective memory of the Holocaust. Casteel argues that African diaspora writers and artists have persistently challenged the erasure of Black wartime history both through their testimonial art and through imaginative acts of recovery. At the same time, the reception histories of their works reveal the extent to which scholarly, curatorial, and marketing categories and imperatives have tended to undermine these efforts to emphasize other groups' experiences during World War II"-- Provided by publisher.
Series:
Black lives in the diaspora: past / present / future
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.