The third Town Hall will take place on April 16, 3-5PM (CET).
In the third town hall, we would like to turn back to an integral facet of the discussion of the first town hall, that of structural racism and the GAAS’s role as an organization of American Studies scholars, many of whom are based in Germany. One central question for the third town hall is “What is the GAAS’s responsibility as an academic organization in Germany?” We hope that this question will allow us to better address the organization’s modes of representing its heterogeneous membership and the diverse students whom we teach. The town hall will open with short statements from four or five panelists, who will address structural racism and institutional exclusion in Germany and German academia, as well as methods for employing the rhetorics of anti-racism and critical diversity in our lives as intellectuals and instructors. After the panel, the floor will be opened for a general discussion. While we are aware that many of us already engage issues of diversity in our research, this townhall is directed towards transferring this existing expertise on issues of marginalization from a North American to German (or other) academic contexts. This town hall should serve as a venue to brainstorm methods for making these issues visible in our work as teachers, students, public intellectuals, and representatives of numerous academic institutions. If you have any questions or are interested in acting as a panelist during this town hall and would like to gain access to a more specific CFP, please reach out to the DR co-speakers: Abby Fagan at abigail.fagan@engsem.uni-hannover.de, Chang Liu at chang.liu@hcts.uni-heidelberg.de, and Dorothee Marx at marx@anglistik.uni-kiel.de.
The zoom invitation will be sent out to all DGfA members.