Questioning ‘Man’ in Joana Tischkau’s Colonastics: Black Feminist Identity Politics in Contemporary German Theater
Keywords:
Array, Array, Array, Array, ArrayAbstract
In my contribution to this volume on Responsive Bodies I want to take a closer look at recent Black feminist identity politics in German theater in order to think about what the Caribbean philosopher Sylvia Wynter calls ‘Man.’ In this regard later in this text I will focus on the video clip series Colonastics (2020) by Joana Tischkau. I will do so in relation to the colonial roots of post-war racism in Germany, more precisely the time after its reunification in 1989. In front of this background my claim is that Afro-German feminist theater makers in the last couple of years have been responding to a certain white dominant culture in the country I am living in as a white German, where right-wing political parties like the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are getting stronger again right now unfortunately. The responsiveness corresponding with the aesthetic practices of the theater makers being discussed here questions, I am claiming with Wynter, ‘Man’ as a dominant genre of being human and thereby brings forth a true pluralization of German society.
References
Arndt, Susan. 2017. “Weißsein. Die verkannte Strukturkategorie Europas und Deutschlands.” In Mythen, Masken und Subjekte. Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland, edited Susan Arndt, Maureen Maisha Eggers, Grada Kilomba, and Peggy Piesche, 24–28. Münster: Unrast.
Arndt, Susan. 2017. “‘Rassen’ gibt es nicht, wohl aber die symbolische Ordnung von Rasse. Der ‘Racial Turn’ als Gegennarrativ zur Verleugnung und Hierarchisierung von Rassismus.” In: Mythen, Masken und Subjekte. Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland, edited by Susan Arndt, Maureen Maisha Eggers, Grada Kilomba, and Peggy Piesche, 340–356. Münster: Unrast.
Aydemir, Fatma, and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, eds. 2018. Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum. Berlin: Ullstein.
Ayim, May. 2021. “Schreiben von den Rändern.” In May Ayim. Radikale Dichterin, sanfte Rebellin, edited by Ika Hügel-Marshall, Nivedita Prasad and Dagmar Schultz, 271–283. Münster: Unrast. Translation of the citation into English by the author.
Balibar, Étienne. 1990. “The Nation Form. History and Ideology.” In Race, Nation, Class, edited by Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, 86–106. Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso.
Combahee River Collective. 1977. Statement. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/. Accessed 16 September 2022.
Decades TV Network. 2018. “1970s: Jane Fonda Workout.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u86NaR3z6FE.
Fanon, Frantz. 1961. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press.
hooks, bell. 2015. “The Oppositional Gaze. Black Female Spectators.” In Black Looks. Race and Representation, 115–132. New York and London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315743226 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315743226
Jackson, Zakiyyah Iman. 2020. Becoming Human. Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. New York: New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479873623.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479873623.001.0001
Kastner, Jens, and Lea Susemichel. 2018. Identitätspolitiken. Konzepte und Kritiken in Geschichte und Gegenwart der Linken. Münster: Unrast.
Kilomba, Grada. 2016. Plantation Memories. Episodes of Everyday Racism. Münster: Unrast.
Music on TV1. 2016. “Jane Fonda - Original Workout (Trailer).“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deKHYCsjseg.
Ommen, Prasanna. 2020. “Colonastics Talk with Joana Tischkau“. Latitude Festival, Goethe Institute, Berlin, 4 –6 June. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SLn_bWJTys
Perinelli, Massimo. 2019. “Triggerwarnung! Critical Whiteness und das Ende antirassistischer Bewegung.” In Triggerwarnung. Identitätspolitik zwischen Abwehr, Abschottung und Allianzen, edited by Eva Berendsen, Saba-Nur Cheema, and Meron Mendel, 77–90. Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag.
Rommelspacher, Birgit. 1995. Dominanzkultur. Texte zu Fremdheit und Macht. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag.
Stegemann, Bernd. 2018. Die Moralfalle. Für eine Befreiung linker Politik. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz
Stegemann, Bernd. 2021. Die Öffentlichkeit und ihre Feinde. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Stegemann, Bernd. 2021. “Review: In den Schützengräben der Verletzbarkeit.“ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 April. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buehne-und-konzert/rassismus-und-machtmissbrauch-erschuettern-die-theater-17283465.html.
Tischkau, Joana. 2020. Colonastics: Techno Drill. https://vimeo.com/432107626. Accessed 21 January, 2023.
Wynter, Sylvia. 2015. “The Ceremony Found. Towards the Autopoetic Turn/Overturn, its Autonomy of Human Agency and Extraterritoriality of (Self-)Cognition.” In Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology, edited by Jason R. Ambroise and Sabine Broeck, 184–252. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9781781381724.003.0008 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9781781381724.003.0008
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Stefan Hölscher
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, provided it is for non-commercial uses; and that lets others excerpt, translate, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
