Sarah Vandegrift Eldridge reflects on the relevance of 18th-century German studies and provides a critical annotated bibliography for a reading list for those interested.

I would like to argue that German Studies scholars are not only particularly well positioned to engage with migration and its discontents; given the history of German-speaking cultures and the dire situation for migrants and asylum-seekers in the U.S. and worldwide, condemning xenophobic, anti-minority, and racist discourses is also our most solemn duty.

It matters because it gives us the language to process these emotions and better understand how their expression shapes our world.

Many people are familiar with some of the basics about East Germany (e.g., single-party state, socialism/communism, Berlin Wall), but there is little common knowledge about my focus within GDR Studies: the experiences and depictions of lesbians and gay men in East Germany. In what follows, I will discuss some of the things we can learn from studying this subject and why these topics matter.

I wholeheartedly believe that there always are lessons to be learned from the past, and that the 40-year experiment that was the GDR continues to offer scholars a unique lens through which to ponder German Studies.

In this response, I’d like to reflect on why Black German Studies is necessary both in the US and in Germany. Ironically, it seems less pressing to make a case for Black German Studies in the US. Many of the scholars who have done pioneering work in this field, including Black Germans like Fatima El-Tayeb and Peggy Piesche, and African Americans like Tina Campt and Michelle Wright, have taught or continue to teach in the US. And I have received less push back to Black German Studies’ relevance in the US, than in Germany, where unfortunately Black German scholars face even more hurdles trying to enter academia and conduct research on critical race studies once in academia. Nevertheless, I will start by considering the US context, since that is the context within which I was trained and in which I teach. And despite being seemingly open to Black German topics of study, there is still room for improvement both in US African Diaspora as well as in US German programs at the K-16 level and beyond.

But it should actually be framed differently: why has Black German Studies not seemingly mattered before? The word matter is of particular interest here. To matter is to signify something of importance. Indeed, what matters in diverse academic settings, which are often the bastions of white cis-heteropatriarchy, is not typically reflective of what is of value to the broader population. What matters is that which is deemed worthy in terms of cultural cache and warrants knowledge production and circulation. Moreover, whoever is in control of that matter subjects it to scrutiny, limits its scope, and circumscribes its meaning.