«Who Is This Black Man in a Prussian Spiked Helmet?»

A Conversation with Jeff Bowersox from the Black Central European Studies Network

Abstract

Founded in 2014, the Black Central European Studies Network (BCESN) is a collective of historians dedicated to advancing knowledge about the Black diaspora in German-speaking Central Europe. Its aim is to challenge racialized assumptions about history, national identity, and citizenship by foregrounding the presence, contributions, and experiences of Black individuals in the region’s past and present. CARAH talked to Jeff Bowersox, one of the co-founders of BCESN, about the motivations behind the network’s creation, the significance of visual material for historical research, and how it can help challenge dominant Eurocentric and whitewashed interpretations of history.

Keywords:
visual culture, Blackness, historiography, translation, Black German Studies