Aided by researchers from the university, 8th and 12th grade high-school students in Bremen are about to start a search for historical traces of colonial trade and slavery in their town. They are following the wisdom of Confucius: “What you tell me, I forget. What you show me, I remember. What you let me do, I understand.” In this vein, among other things they will be searching the archives and museums in Bremen to see if they can find out whether and, if so, to what extent the dependency of the sugar and cotton trade on slavery is retained in the civic memory. The project is headed by Sabine Broeck, Professor of American Studies and an authority on the subject of “Black Diaspora” in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the University of Bremen.
The project will be officially launched on 18th January 2012 at a kick-off meeting in the auditorium of the Waller Ring School Center (Bremerhavener Str. 83). Students of the school centers Walle and Waller Ring as well as their parents, teachers, and members of the general public are invited to attend and learn more about Bremen’s association with the transatlantic slave trade. Guest speakers, including Jochen Meissner, author of “Schwarzes Amerika. Eine Geschichte der Sklaverei” [Black America: A History of the Slave Trade] and Kwame Nimako from the Amsterdam NiNsee institute for research into the history of the Dutch slave trade, will deliver short talks on the repercussions of the transatlantic slave trade.
The objective pursued by the DENKWERK Project funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation is to promote closer collaboration between universities and schools, and to introduce young people to the objectives and methods of research. The project will run over a period of several weeks and the results will be presented at a closing event as well as on a special website designed and organized by the students themselves. A re-run is planned for the following year.
For more information, please contact:
Universität Bremen
Fachbereich 10: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften
Prof. Dr. Sabine Broeck
Phone: +49 421 218-68130
e-mail: broeckprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
