Transnational Black Dialogues: Re-Imagining Slavery in the Twenty-First Century

Published 07/2016 at transcript Verlag (Find more information here).

Markus Nehl focuses on black authors who, from a 21st-century perspective, revisit slavery in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, Canada and Jamaica. Nehl’s provocative readings of Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, Yvette Christiansë’s Unconfessed, Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes and Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women delineate how these texts engage in a fruitful dialogue with African diaspora theory about the complex relation between the local and transnational and the enduring effects of slavery. Reflecting on the ethics of narration, this study is particularly attentive to the risks of representing anti-black violence and to the intricacies involved in (re-)appropriating slavery’s archive.

• Curriculum Vitae
  aktuell	Teacher, Mallinckrodt-Gymnasium, Dortmund
  01/2016	PhD, Graduate School Practices of Literature, WWU Münster
  03/2013 – 01/2016	PhD scholarship by the Cusanuswerk
  04/2013 - 07/2013	Lecturer (American Studies Department, University of Münster)
  02/2011 - 03/2013	Postgraduate Research Assistant, Department of Education Studies, University of Münster
  11/2010	First State Examination in German and English, University of Münster
  09/2010 - 01/2011	Student/ Postgraduate Research Assistant, English Department, University of Münster
  08/2007 - 05/2008	Undergraduate Student and German Studies Language Fellow at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY, USA)
  2005 - 2010	Studies in German and English, University of Münster
  Academic Membership
  	German Association for American Studies (GAAS)
  	The Collegium for African American Research (CAAR)
  	Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
  Other Academic Activities
  	Assistant, research proposal, Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging,” Seventh Framework Programme, EU (Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Klaus Stierstorfer)

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  Publications
  	“Richard Wright, Native Son (1940).” Handbook of the American Novel of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Ed. Timo Müller. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. 250-263.
  	Transnational Black Dialogues: Re-Imagining Slavery in the Twenty-First Century. Bielefeld: transcript, 2016.
  Conference Papers & Presentations
  06/2015	“‘Hertseer:’ (Re-)Appropriating the Archive of Slavery in Yvette Christiansë’s Unconfessed.” Mobilising Memory: Creating African Atlantic Identities. 11th International Conference of CAAR. Liverpool Hope University, England.
  01/2015	“Rethinking the African Diaspora: Lawrence Hill’s Neo-Slave Narrative The Book of Negroes.” Guest Lecture in the Course “20th-Century Canadian Literature“ (Prof. Dr. Katja Sarkowsky). University of Münster.
  04/2014	“The Afterlife of Slavery and the Future of Black Diaspora Studies.” The Futures of Black Studies – Historicity, Objectives and Methodologies, Ethics. International Conference. Bremen Black Studies. University of Bremen.
  09/2013	"I have no kicking heart no home no tomorrow": Diaspora Space in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy." International Conference ITN CoHaB: “Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging” Englisches Seminar, Chair of British Studies, University of Münster.
  03/2013	"Violent Struggles for Black Freedom: Re-Imagining Slavery in Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women." Dreams Deferred, Promises and Struggles: Perceptions and Interrogations of Empire, Nation, and Society by Peoples of African Descent. 10th International Conference of CAAR. Agnes Scott College, Decatur/Atlanta, USA.
  07/2012	"'Every negro walk in a circle. Take that and make of it what you will.' -- Revisiting Slavery in Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women(2009)." Forum INPUTS. Institute for Postcolonial and Transcultural Studies. University of Bremen.
  03/2012	"A Stranger at Home: The African Experience in Lawrence Hill’s Neo-Slave Narrative." Writing Slavery after Beloved. International Symposium. Université de Nantes, France.
  12/2011	"'Every negro walk in a circle. Take that and make of it what you will.' -- Revisiting Slavery in Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women(2009)." Hotspots in Literary/ Cultural Studies and Linguistics. Lecture Series. University of Münster.
  12/2010	"A Stranger at Home: The African Experience in Contemporary Neo-Slave Narratives." Hotspots in Literary/ Cultural Studies and Linguistics. Lecture Series. University of Münster.