Blackening Europe: The African American Presence

Book Description
This collection explores the social products and meaning of Europe's fascination with African America. After a historiographical review, the volume divides into three parts. Part I examines early, classic influences (jazz, Josephine Baker, Katherine Dunham) through an Afro-centric perspective. Part II looks at contemporary cross-fertilizations like Finnish Pop and Hungarian Rap to mark the development of cultural relations. Lastly, through essays that question the Enlightenment's silence on slavery, the growth an anti-immigrant politics, and the integration of gypsies in Romania, Part III submits a theory of Europe's blackening, a draft model of how race and ethnicity can be understood in a unavoidably multicultural Europe.


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Traditional scholars have often looked at African American studies through the lens of European theories, resulting in the secondarization of the African American presence in Europe and its contributions to European culture. Blackening Europe reverses this pattern by using African American culture as the starting point for a discussion of its influences over traditional European structures. Evidence of Europe's blackening abound, from French ministers of hip-hop and British incarnations of "Shaft" to slavery memorials in the Netherlands and German youth sporting dreadlocks. Collecting essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic and fields as diverse as history, literature, politics, social studies, art, film, and music, Blackening Europe explores the implications of these cultural hybrids and extends the growing dialogue about Europe's fascination with African America.


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