| This study examines the appropriation of African American cultural forms by Germans, particularly Germans of color, during the decade following German reunification, 1989–1999, and questions what it means to be “German” within post Cold War Germany in which identities are constituted by and in multicultural, multiethnic, transnational communities. In examining African American influences on popular music, youth culture, Afro Deutsche (African German) writers, and television in Germany, this study attempts to trace the emergence of postmodern subjectivities permeated and interpolated by displacement.; Chapter One addresses the issue of Germany's cultural heritage, which has been conflated with its self-image and reputation as a Kulturnation (culture nation), and as one of the premiere producers of high culture in the West; it then discusses the challenges to this traditional self-understanding posed by popular culture at the end of the twentieth century.; Chapter Two explores the struggle of Afro-Deutsche writers to be recognized as German, as thematized in the writings of the poet and social commentator May Ayim, the writer and social activist Ika Hügel-Marshall and German-American writer Hans J. Massaquoi.; The third chapter analyzes the phenomenon of German hip hop music from all white pop-hip hop groups, whose music is marketed purely as entertainment, to Afro-Deutsche rap stars, whose lyrics and performances constitute a form of protest against racist practices in Germany.; Chapter Four examines youth culture and the challenge to high art implicit in the graffiti scene surrounding the German hip hop movement.; The fifth and final chapter addresses the representation of black Germans and blackness in the German media, particularly in television.; In conclusion I suggest that cyberspace offers an alternative possibility for constituting new transracial and transnational alliances within Germany. |
