The role of the translator: mediator, moderator, gatekeeper
Our macht.sprache. project has given us cause to think carefully about the work of translation, and the people who do this work.
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Post/colonial English: The language of African literature?
In light of our translation project, case.sensitive., we’ve had cause to think once more about the relationships between different languages, and how these work in regard to power.
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Black German History: August Sabac el Cher, administrator of silver in the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in Berlin
Although Black German history goes back several hundred years, it is often difficult to reconstruct, and the life stories of individuals – such as that of August Sabac el Cher, the administrator of silver in the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais – remain incomplete. Art can fill gaps or at least make them visible in an effective way.
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Is the world creolizing?
With his faith in the beauty of cultural hybridity, Édouard Glissant became one of the most influential postcolonial theorists. In dystopian times, his philosophy of relation gives rise to hope.
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What does ‘postcolonial’ mean?
poco.lit. is a platform for postcolonial literatures – but what does that actually mean? Here is a brief overview.
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Discrimination, language, and translation tools
Many people who find their cultural activities increasingly moving into the realm of the virtual might find themselves working more and more with translation tools. Yet these tools, and the translations they offer, tend to suffer from biases embedded into their making.
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Green Library – a year in review
The year 2020 is coming to an end, and our Green Library series with it. Here’s a short retrospective.
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The ambivalent powers of speculative fiction
Recently, we’ve published articles on Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism. Both Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism can be framed as belonging to the larger genre of speculative fiction. But what is speculative fiction? Or perhaps more importantly, what can it do?
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Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism
The Afrofuturist movement strives for a space for independence and self-determination for Black people and rejects European universalism. Yet writers on the African continent have also expressed how this label doesn’t speak to and for what they are doing…
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Afrofuturism 2.0 – a legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois
Afrofuturism is a future-oriented concept that centers Africa and/or Blackness. The Afro-German academic activist and curator Natasha A. Kelly explains in her recently published anthology that Afrofuturism 2.0 builds on the theoretical and artistic legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois.
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