In response to increasing study of Germany’s colonial legacy, the organizers have solicited papers for an International Interdisciplinary Conference on “German Colonialism and Post- Colonialism” at San Francisco State University. The 35 years of Germany’s colonial rule left a lasting impact on territories in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean and shaped German politics. However, due to twentieth-century historical developments in Germany and the centrality of Britain’s and France’s imperialistic thrusts, Germany’s brief colonial engagement has been viewed as relatively insignificant.
Recent interest in Germany’s colonial history has been motivated by contemporary developments in the German political situation, such as the change of Article 116 of the Basic Law in 2000, the call for a “deutsche Leitkultur” (“defining” or “leading” German culture), the resistance to the notion of a multicultural society, and the brutal attacks on Afro-Germans, as well as by the interest in postcolonial theory in academia. There does exist a wealth of significant historical inquiry into German colonialism. However, only over the past years has there been a change in scholarship that included, for instance, the notion of race as one of the central components in identifying links between historical colonialism and contemporary German society.
The conference organizers seek a broader spectrum in order to grasp Germany’s imperial project, including, but not limited to the disciplinary fields of medicine, law, and anthropology. The conference will address Germany’s biased and troubled relationship with its colonial past by using as its departure point the “scramble for Africa.” While the organizers acknowledge that colonial engagement neither started nor ended with formal colonial rule, we have limited the historical frame and focus.
The conference is supported by:
Venue: Seven Hills Conference Center at SFSU
Dates: Thursday 6 - Sunday September 9, 2007
Conference organizers:
