Professor Dr. Frank Wilderson has been given a nine-month advanced research grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work in the high-profile research area of Black Diaspora Studies in the University of Bremen‘s Faculty of Linguistics and Literature Studies. The University is reciprocating by having Sabine Broeck, Professor of American Studies and an expert on the topic “Black Diaspora” in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literature Studies, support the research project. The American scholar is investigating how structural racist violence has prevented black people from fully participating in Western societies since the beginning of large-scale black slavery in the 17th century. The aim of his stay in Bremen is to prepare a new monograph on the topic “The Black Position: Civil Death in Civil Society”.
Prof. Frank Wilderson is regarded as one of the leading representatives of a relatively new strand of research within international Black Studies. This explores the issue of whether the election of a black president, Barack Obama, has rendered the critical American ant-racism debate obsolete. Human rights campaigners point out that the daily life reality of the black population has gone virtually unchanged – this is underscored, for instance, by the disproportionate number of young Afro-Americans in US prisons. “A critical appraisal is now more important than ever”, says Sabine Broeck, a recognized expert in the field of the “Black Diaspora”. “And any analysis of racial relations in America has to take into account the legacy of early-modern black slavery that still lingers on today.”
Wilderson already enjoys quite a reputation as a film maker and writer. He teaches Critical Theory und Performance Studies in the Drama Department of the University of California, Irvine. Aside from his own research, during his stay in Bremen the Humboldt Fellow will also contribute to activities at the Institute of Post-colonial and Transcultural Studies (INPUTS), as well as the newly-formed “Bremen Black Studies” Junior Research Group.
You can obtain further information by contacting:
Universität Bremen
Prof.Dr. Sabine Broeck
Phone: +49 421 218-68130
email: Broeckprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
