M5-MA S: Current Debates von Globalisation, Media & Culture A: Black Geographies
Instructors: Toni Wilhelm AdscheidShortname: M5-MA S
Course No.: 09.050.461
Course Type: Seminar
Requirements / organisational issues
Being enroled in our MA's study programAnwesenheitspflicht
Attendance is considered manditory for all classes ... to be able to engage in debates and discussionRecommended reading list
Key readings include but are not limited to:Bledsoe, A. and Wright, W. J. (2019): The Pluralities of Black Geographies. Antipode, 51(2), pp. 419–437.
Hartman, S. (2019): Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Hawthorne, C. (2023): Black Mediterranean Geographies: Translation and the Mattering of Black Life in Italy. Gender, Place & Culture, 30(3), pp. 484–507.
McKittrick, K. and Woods, C. (eds.) (2007): Black Geographies and the Politics of Place. Toronto: Between the Lines.
Noxolo, P. (2022): Geographies of Race and Ethnicity I: Black Geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 46(5), pp. 1232–1240.
Sharpe, C. (2016): In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham: Duke University Press.
Contents
In this course, we will engage in conversation around the following question: What does it mean to insist that Black lives matter from a geographical perspective? Building a shared understanding of place, we will attend to debates across human geography, Black Studies and Black Geographies. Our aim is to initiate conversations around both the theoretical limitations of geographical knowledge production and the different worlds and geographical possibilities that become visible when Black place-making practices, experiences and knowledges are centred.A particular focus will be placed on the racialised power relations that shape how Black lives and spaces are made knowable. We will critically examine representations of the city as a site of Black marginality, crime and poverty; colonial constructions of the environments inhabited by Black communities; Black humanity; and the spatial afterlives of colonialism, slavery and imperialism. At the same time, we will explore Black spatial practices, knowledges and imaginations that refuse or exceed these racialised geographical logics. This includes everyday practices of place-making, care, resistance, joy and creativity, as well as the alternative worlds opened by Black geographical imaginations. We will engage not only with academic literature, policy documents and urban development plans, but also with songs, poetry, comics, films and other cultural materials.
Following an introduction to the field of Black Geographies, each participant will select a particular spatial context, such as a neighbourhood, city, suburb, sea, forest or desert. In their presentation, participants will examine how their selected place has been produced, represented or made known as Black and how Black communities inhabit, remake or refuse the racialised geographical logics associated with it. Each presentation will be followed by a theoretically informed collective discussion. Careful preparation of the assigned readings is therefore essential. Participants may use PowerPoint but are strongly encouraged to incorporate other formats and materials that allow them to engage creatively with their chosen contexts and involve the other participants in the discussion.
Dates
| Date (Day of the week) | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 10/28/2026 (Wednesday) | 14:15 - 15:45 | 04 223 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/14/2026 (Saturday) | 10:00 - 18:00 | 02 142 N 239 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |
| 11/15/2026 (Sunday) | 10:00 - 18:00 | 02 142 N 239 1341 - Naturwissenschaftliches Institutsgebäude |