Black Canada with N. Sawallisch and R. Njeri Artwork

Talking American Studies

Dedicated to highlighting currents of North American Studies in Germany.Also on spotify and itunes, or follow Talking American Studies on twitter/facebook/instagram!About the host/creator: I'm Verena Adamik, and I teach and research American Studies at the University of Potsdam. For my PhD project, I investigated the link between the United States' national narrative and utopianism by looking at fictional renditions of utopian communities (i.e. 'communes') in the nineteenth century. I am currently turning some of my findings into a book. Further research interests include horror fiction and African American writing, specifically sf, horror, and literary responses to White supremacist discourse. Because I miss going to seminars and lectures, I decided to just get scholars to spill their intellectual beans in this podcast.

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Talking American Studies

Black Canada with N. Sawallisch and R. Njeri

December 20, 2019 • Verena Adamik (and others) • Season 1 • Episode 5

Black Canada - Dr. Nele Sawallisch and Rahab Njeri are talking American Studies: about the long history of Black people in the 'great white north,' about slavery in Canada, about what happens once people reached the final destination of the underground railroad, and about oversights and erasure in archives and academia.

http://www.irtg-diversity.com/index.php?page=people&person=rahab_njeri&id=201
http://www.obama-institute.com/sawallisch-2/

"There is a well-rehearsed, confident American master narrative; there is that series of regional and national novella accounts that, with appropriate diffidence, diffusion, and non-assertion, make up a great Canadian narrative, on that often seems to attain its most solid credentials as a counter narrative to the American one." (Healy 6)

"Northrop Frye once noted that all societies, in the process of developing an identity, draw a magic circle of mythological language around themselves, giving them an account of who they want to be - distinctive, particular, often touched by divine approbation" (Healy 6)

Clarke, George Elliott. Africadian History: An Exhibition Catalogue. 2001.

Cooper, Afua. Breaking Chains.1984.

Davis, Angela Y. Angela Davis: An Autobiography. 2008.

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden. Ananasi, 1971.

Healy, J.J. "From Adam to Multi-Ethnic Cowboy: The New History, Politics, and Geography of North America in a Canadian - American Context" Context North America. Canadian/U.S. Literary Relations. ed. Camillie R. la Bossiére. 1994.

Hill, Lawrence. The Book of Negroes. Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority, Library, 2017.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Holt, 1970.

Nelson, Charmaine A. Towards an African Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance. 2018.

Rhodes, Jane. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: the Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. 1999.

Sawallisch, Nele. Fugitive Borders: Black Canadian Cross-Border Literature at Mid-Nineteenth Century. Transcript, 2019.

Siemerling, Winfried. The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History, and the Presence of the Past. 2015.

Smallwood, Thomas. A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood, (Coloured Man:) Giving an

Account of His Birth--The Period He Was Held in Slavery--His Release--and Removal to Canada, etc. Together With an Account of the Underground Railroad. Written by Himself. Toronto: James Stephens, 1851. Documenting the American South. 2001. Online.

Trudel, Marcel, et al. Canadas Forgotten Slaves: Two Hundred Years of Bondage. Véhicule, 2013.

Walcott, Rinaldo. Black like Who?: Writing Black Canada. 2018.

Winks, Robin W. The Blacks in Canada: A History. 2008.

Music Intro/Outro

Title: pine voc - coconut macaroon; Author: Stevia Sphere; Source: https://soundcloud.com/hissoperator/pine-voc-coconut-macaroon License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Royalty Free Open Music from https://starfrosch.com