The Private/Plural Selves of Afro-German Women and the Search for a Public Voice

Abstract

Africanist George Shepperson (1982), considering the global dimensions suggested by the concept diaspora, spoke of it as being an intrinsically comparative idea which has everything to gain by approaches through other (p. 49). He goes on to insist that the fullest development of African Diaspora Studies and an understanding of its relationship to other disciplines require that Africanists look further outward by conducting research in languages other than English in order to assess more completely the impact of other cultures directly or indirectly involved with the dispersal of Africans and their descendants throughout the world. A similar idea turned inward must also be applied to German Studies, whose expansive breadth and diversity cannot be fully appreciated without study of the impact of minorities, in this case Africans and their descendants, on the language, literature, and culture. Certainly the African presence within German culture contrasts sharply with the experience of Frenchor Spanishand Portuguesespeaking countries, whose colonial ties to Africa were more firmly and widely established and lasted much longer than the ties initiated by Germany. Although Germany's colonial interests in Africa were severed by the end of World War I, the brief colonial connection, along with subsequent wartime occupation (during both World War I and World War II) and peacetime migration, brought an influx of Africans and descendants of Africans-primarily from France and

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