International Conference, Georgetown University and Howard University, November 9-10, 2018
RSVP here: https://decolonizing-the-museum.eventbrite.com
ABSTRACT:
In 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in Washington, DC, against the background of intense debates about public memorialization of slavery and the Civil War, and calls for reparations. Meanwhile, a growing number of exhibitions in German museums have begun to tackle German colonial history, including the genocide of Hereros and Namas in what was then German-Southwest Africa, and explore its legacies in a culturally diverse society. Historians, curators, artists, and activists in both countries are at the center of discussions about dire pasts, the politics of collecting and exhibiting, and the possibility of repair.
Scholars and curators from the USA and Germany will speak about recent efforts to create postcolonial approaches to cultural heritage, cosmopolitan pedagogy, and museums’ engagement with postcolonial communities.
The conference will include a keynote by a prominent scholar of museum studies; two academic panels presenting case studies on exhibiting the colonial past from Germany and slavery in the USA; and two roundtables with scholars from Georgetown University about GU’s efforts to come to terms with the university’s history of slavery, and with artists addressing German colonialism in their work, respectively.
For more information about this event contact Katrin Sieg at ks253@georgetown.edu.
SCHEDULE:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Venue: Intercultural Center 700, Executive Conference Room (ECR), Georgetown University
10:00am: Introduction and Welcome
Katrin Sieg, BMW Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University
Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University
10:30am: Keynote
Silke Arnold-de Simine (University of London): “Challenging Futures – Painful Pasts: Memory, Mourning and Activism in Museums and Heritage Sites”
12:00pm: Lunch
1:00pm: Panel I: Exhibiting Slavery, Imagining Repair
Ana Lucia Araujo (Howard University): “Slavery, Museums, and Memorials: Limits and Possibilities of Symbolic Reparations”
Nancy Bercaw (Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution): “Slavery, History, and the Exhibition of Catastrophe: Re-thinking Curatorial Practice”
Ibrahima Seck (Whitney Plantation, New Orleans): “A Journey through Slavery on the German Coast of Louisiana”
Moderator: Mary Elliott, National Museum of African American History and Culture
3:00pm: Coffee break
3:30pm: Roundtable: Institutions Respond to their History of Slavery
Benedict Carton (George Mason University)
David Collins (Georgetown University)
Marcia Chatelain (Georgetown University)
Derek Goldman (Global Lab on Politics and Performance, Georgetown University)
Elizabeth Thomas (Georgetown University Graduate Student)
Kirt von Daacke (University of Virginia)
Moderator: Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University
5:30pm: Dinner reception
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10
Venue: Ralphe J. Bunche International Affairs Center, Howard University
9:30am: Panel II: Exhibiting German Colonialism
Marie Muschalek (Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg): “The Case of Colonialism: German Master Narratives and Alternatives at the German Historical Museum in Berlin”
Imani Tafari-Ama (University of the West Indies): “Skeletons in the Closet: Curating the Colonial History of Flensburg, Germany’s ‘Rum City’”
Heike Hartmann (Humboldt University): “’German Colonialism: Fragments of its History and Present’ at the German History Museum, Berlin”
Moderator: Katrin Sieg, Georgetown University
11:30am: Artists’ Presentations
Dierk Schmidt, “The Division of the Earth: Tableaux on the Legal Synopses of the Berlin Africa Conference and Broken Windows”
Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, “We Built the Kilimanjaro: The Revenge of the Crystal in the Economy of Darkness”
Moderator: Catrina Hill, Curator of American Art, NMAAHC
1:30pm: Visit to National Museum of African American History and Culture
6:00pm: Dinner for conference participants