Visiting Scholar to Speak on Black German Hip Hop

Brett Sterling

The German program will host a talk by Adrienne Merritt, assistant professor of German at the University of Colorado, at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 4, in Kimpel 209. Merritt will present a keynote address to mark this year's induction ceremony for the National German Honor Society Delta Phi Alpha.

Her talk, titled "Black German Sonic Spacetimes: Imagining Future Geographies and the Hip Hop Soundscape," will explore how recent work by Black German hip hop artist Leila Akinyi explores the precarious situation of Black Germans today:

Often "read" socially as foreign or non-German, Black German hip hop artists negotiate and push back against narrow understandings of German belonging and Germanness through cultural production to construct spaces within which they meld German, Black diasporic and African cultural expressions. This talk works with hip hop tracks and Afrofuturist literature to tie Black German studies to Black studies more broadly to confront notions of space, time, national borders and the power of creation through cultural production.

The talk is free and open to the public. For questions about the event, contact Brett Sterling at bsterli@uark.edu.

The mission of the National German Honor Society, Delta Phi Alpha, is to recognize excellence in the study of German and to provide an incentive for higher scholarship. The society aims to promote the study of the German language, literature and civilization and endeavors to emphasize those aspects of German life and culture which are of universal value and which contribute to humanity's eternal search for peace and truth.