Alexandra Dempe (she/her) has been a PhD candidate and research assistant at the German Department of the University of Tübingen since February 2024. Prior to this, she completed a degree in German Studies with a minor in English/American Studies (B.A.) and in German Literature (M.A.) and American Studies (M.A.) at the University of Tübingen. Her research interests include periodical studies, translation studies, transnational modernisms, and Black German literature.

Reception and Translation of African American Modernist Literature in German-speaking Periodicals in the Long 1920s (Working Title)

The 1920s saw the publication of not one but two anthologies that contained or even focused on African American poetry: Claire Goll’s Die neue Welt (1921) and Anna Nußbaum’s Afrika singt (1929). Given that these anthologies not only reflect a growing interest in Black culture in the 1920s but also put African American literature on a pedestal through their anthologization, it is not surprising that scholarship to date has largely focused on them. Yet, what this focus on the anthology leaves out of consideration is the question of how African American poems crossed the Atlantic almost simultaneously with their coming into existence in Harlem, New York, in order to be translated in Vienna and Berlin – in short, the question of what precedes the anthologization of African American poetry and makes it possible. My PhD project explores this question, focusing on the before and in-between: the translations of and articles on modern African American literature published in large numbers in German-speaking periodicals throughout the long 1920s. I argue that the translations, along with transatlantic knowledge about Afro America, which find their way into German-speaking periodicals in the 1920s, are made possible by the transatlantic networking and cooperation of individual, predominantly Jewish, leftist actors with renowned African American intellectuals, and are disseminated through networks within German-speaking countries. Consequently, over the course of the 1920s, a globalizing communication and collaboration developed, conducted through African American literature, and resonating between Berlin, Vienna, and Harlem.

Conference Reports

• (together with Tim Brown) "Tagungsbericht: Rassismus und Weltwissen: Praktiken, Diskurse und Episteme der deutschen Aufklärung." Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert, vol. 47, no. 2, 2023, pp. 120-23.
• (together with Tim Brown). "Tagungsbericht: Rassismus und Weltwissen: Praktiken, Diskurse und Episteme der deutschen Aufklärung." H-Soz-Kult, 4 December 2023. www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-140290 [last accessed 22 May 2024].

• “‘Doing Solidarity?’ The German-speaking Reception of African American Modernist Poetry in the ‘Long 1920s’”, Interdependence and Solidarity Formations in German Studies and the Arts: DDGC Conference 2025, online (10-12 April 2025).

• “Translation ‘In Process’: African American Knowledge and Modernist Poetry in German-speaking Periodicals in the ‘Long 1920s’”, Knowledges in Motion: Black Travels, Belonging, and Transformations: 14th Biannual CAAR Conference, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (20-22 March 2025).

• “Du ungiftige slange, was hat dich hergehangen? Der Hass auf den Phallus und die Befreiung vom (biologischen) Geschlecht im Nonnenturnier,” as part of the seminar “Offenkundiges und Abgedunkeltes in mittelhochdeutschen Liedern und Mären. Wie subversiv können mittelhochdeutsche Texte sein?” at the University of Tübingen (20 December 2024).

• “A Processual and Relational Approach to the German Translation of African American Modernist Poetry in the 1920s,” Translation in Action: 121st Annual PAMLA Conference, Riviera Palm Springs Resort, Palm Springs, CA (7-10 November 2024).

• “Harlem Resonances: Die Rezeption und Übersetzung afroamerikanischer modernistischer Literatur in deutschsprachigen Zeitschriften der langen 1920er Jahre,” Serialität und Komposition: Jahrestreffen des Arbeitskreises Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschriftenforschung, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder (27-28 June 2024).

• “Vom ‘Modewohlwollen für Fremdländisches und Noch-Nicht-Dagewesenes’: Die Rezeption afroamerikanischer modernistischer Literatur in deutschsprachigen Zeitschriften der 1920er Jahre,” as part of the project “Erinnerung in Komplexität” at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (26 June 2024).

• PS II: Black German Poetry (WS 2024/25)
• PS II: The 'New Woman' in the (Literature of the) Weimar Republic (WS 2024/25)