February is Black History Month!

Black communities have been making major contributions to Europe's social and cultural life and landscapes for centuries. However, their achievements largely remain unrecognized by the dominant societies, as their perspectives are excluded from traditional modes of marking public memory.

hörscript hosts Julia Bauer and Felicitas Friedrich welcome Natasha A. Kelly and Olive Vassell, editors of »Mapping Black Europe. Monuments, Markers, Memories«, as guests on this podcast episode.

Along with sharing valuable anecdotes around their more than 3-year-long work on the volume, they discuss questions like:

What makes a community a community?

How did the global political movement of #BlackLivesMatter manage to unite Black people beyond nations, despite the world simultaneously being in the midst of a pandemic?

What historically important statues, monuments and memorials exist all over Europe – without the majority of people being aware of the often invisible work and stories behind them?

In the initially last episode of hörscript, listeners learn about the complexity of Black identities, the importance of Black scholars and Black knowledge as part of academic curricula, and how both (grassroots) activists and academics play a huge role in making the largely untold and almost forgotten histories of important Black icons and personas visible.

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About BEAN (Black European Academic Network):

http://beaneu.org/de/black-european-academic-network-bean/

About Mary Seacole and her statue in London:

https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/

The book »Mapping Black Europe. Monuments, Markers, Memories«, the books from former episodes, and more about transcript and the podcast:

https://linktr.ee/hoerscript.podcast

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00:12 – Intro

02:32 – Welcoming Natasha A. Kelly & Olive Vassell + discussion of the process of the book »Mapping Black Europe. Monuments, Markers, Memories«

06:10 – What are the characteristics of the Black community?

10:33 – How #BlackLivesMatter influenced the work on the book

17:43 – (The lack of) Black Studies in the curricula of European / German universities

24:40 – BEAN: The Black European Academic Network

29:14 – Which memorial of Black Europe is a must-see? The story of Mary Seacole

33:19 – Closing words interview

34:03 – Outro, conclusion, + and our goodbyes!

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