UPDATED EVENT LINK - Freedom Abroad: The History of African Americans in Europe

Event Image

*SEE BELOW: UPDATED LINK FOR APRIL 28TH PANELS*

 

An online conference with New York University and Case Western Reserve University

**no pre-registration required. See instructions below to join.**
 

The history of African Americans traveling to, working and living in Europe offers a rich archive through which to explore historical tensions between American notions of freedom and citizenship in the United States and Europe.  Freedom Abroad: The History of African Americans in Europe will be a month-long joint online conference hosted by Case Western Reserve University and New York University that explores and commemorates this history through a series of panels and talks by leading scholars of these historical personalities and their time in Europe

Add To Calendar

Langston Hughes Papers. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Photo from the Langston Hughes Papers

The first two days will be hosted by Case Western Reserve University:

Passcode 223766 required to attend these sessions, click here to join. All event times are listed in EDT.

Wednesday, 7 April 2021

Panel One at 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Exile, Expatriation, Pilgrimage: The Nomenclature of Leaving
With Nancy L. Green (EHESS-Paris), Tracy Sharpley-Whiting (Vanderbilt), Ewa Luczac (University of Warsaw), and Moderator: Gayle Wald (George Washington University)

Panel Two at 4:30 – 6:00 pm
War on the Continent: African Americans, WWI and the Spanish Civil War
With Brooke Blower (Boston University), Jordi Torrent (Director, Invisible Heroes: African Americans in the Spanish Civil War), Tom Clavin (Author, All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard-Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy), and Moderator/Respondent: NYU/CWRU

Wednesday 14 April 2021
Panel One at 12:30 – 2:00 pm
W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke in Imperial Germany
With Jeffrey Stewart (University of California, Santa Barbara), Jonathan Wipplinger (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), and Moderator/Respondent: NYU/CWRU

Panel Two at 4:30 – 6:00 pm
African Americans and the Lure of European Classicism
With Michele Valerie Ronnick (Wayne State University), Peggy Norris (Ridgewood-Bolger Heritage Center), John W. Lee (University of California, Santa Barbara), and Moderator: Kenneth F. Ledford (CWRU)

 

Hosted by New York University:

All event times are listed in EDT.

Wednesday 21 April 2021
Panel One at 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Jazz in European Exile: A Conversation with Maxine Gordon
With Mrs. Maxine Gordon (Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon) and Ethelene Whitmire (University of Wisconsin, Madison), and Moderator: Sybil Cooksey (Gallatin, NYU)

Panel Two at 4:30 – 6:00 pm
Postwar Paris, Postwar Rome, Postwar Berlin
With Rashida Braggs (Williams College), Melanie Masterton Sherazi (California Institute of Technology), Maria Hoehn (Vassar College), and Moderator: Jennifer Boittin (Penn State)

 

Hosted by Case Western Reserve University:

Passcode 223766 required to attend these sessions, click here to join.

Wednesday 28 April 2021
Panel One at 12:30 – 2:00 pm
The Cold War and the Black Radical Turn in Europe, Africa and Cuba
With Craig Lanier Allen (New York University), Elaine Mokhtefi (Author of Algiers, Third World Capital: Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers), and Moderator Respondent: Dr. Elizabeth Banks (NYU)

Panel Two at 4:30 – 6:00 pm
Footsteps: African Americans in Contemporary Europe
A moderated conversation with Andrea Lee (Turin, Italy), Stew (Berlin, Amsterdam), Jake Lamar (Paris), and Moderator: Herrick Chapman

 

Co-sponsored by the NYU Department of History and NYU's Office of the Dean for the Humanities.