DDGC 2021

Call for Papers: DDGC 2021

Call for applications for participation and/or papers

The DDGC (Diversity and Decolonization in the German Curriculum) collective invites applications for participation and/or presentation at our biennial conference from March 11-14, 2021, focused on antiracism, anti-Black racism, white supremacy and resistance in German studies. In recognition of the instability caused for many faculty by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and in recognition of the differential impacts of the situation on BIPOC communities and BIPOC academics, we are planning this as an entirely virtual event. DUE: October 7th, 2020

Plenary Speakers

Dr. Tiffany Florvil, University of New Mexico
Dr. Kira Thurman, University of Michigan

Who we are

Members of the collective Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum (DDGC) recognize that oppression has permeated European colonial modernity since the 15th century, and that it persists today around the world. Routinely, this oppression expresses itself as intersectional violence against people, based upon 

• Racialization: through racism, anti-Blackness, colorism, ethnicization, settler practices, Indigenous erasure, and white supremacy;

• Regimes of embodiment: through normative sex, gender, sexuality, ableism;  

• Elite social distinctions: through class, caste, educational credentialing, deskilling, neoliberal competition, and extreme meritocracy; 

• Regimes of expression: through language, accent, native-speakerism, delanguaging, intellectual pedigree;

• Regimes of civic order: through citizenship, nationalism, status vulnerability, ascriptions of permanence and impermanence; anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish fear-mongering;

• Regimes of deprivation: through wealth, debt, impoverishment, structural precarity, involuntary volunteerism, and coercive entrepreneurial individualism.​

We recognize that these structural oppressions continue to inform curricula, communities, and daily life in and beyond academia, and that they do constant damage to our students, colleagues, schools, and friends. These aren’t violences that happen somewhere else or in another time, but in our very midst. Accordingly, we see them as intensely endurant conditions to be opposed and dismantled, and not merely as research topics to be explored occasionally and debated virtuously. Keeping it simple, we say: tear them down. 

We recognize that even the most meaningful ideals of Diversity and the most potent practices of Decolonization have yielded conflicting purposes, strategies, actions, and outcomes. We retain both of these guiding principles in the title of our Collective, because we believe these two complex traditions contribute important components to our overall work combating oppression in our time. 

Please read our full statement of guiding principles before submitting a proposal. We invite applications for participation. We also invite applications for presentations or roundtables, on the following topics:

• Resistance and futures in Black central European cultural production

• Antiracism, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy in German studies

• Antiracism, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy in central European culture

• Antiracism, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy in our institutions of higher learning

• Antiracism, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy in German studies curriculum

• Creating antiracist coalitions between primary/secondary and postsecondary educators

• Points of convergence and tensions in decolonial and antiracist curricular work

In addition, we hope to offer workshops on the following topics:

• Antiracist ally training for white academics

• Resistance to Racism and Recovery from Trauma for BIPOC academics

• Antiracism in the German studies postsecondary curriculum and classroom

• Antiracism in primary and secondary curriculum and classrooms