Black Columbiad

“Black Columbiad nicely turns Eurocentric historiography inside out… Introduced and edited by Werner Sollors and Maria Diedrich, well-known scholars in this field, it makes stimulating reading… The book is wide-ranging in scope: from black carnivals in antebellum times to prospects in the year 2000; from African American perceptions of Paris to the subversiveness of jazz in Cold war Europe; from a consideration of the black magician Black Herman in terms of ‘race hero’ to an analysis of the myth of the black rapist and the tangle of tensions between African American criticism and feminist criticism… This collection has a refreshingly international perspective. And when you consider the extent to which African American experience has been about migration, dislocation and expatriation, this is as it should be… Black Columbiad opens up the field; most importantly, it opens up debate. Let there be more work done in this spirit.”—Hazel Rowley, The Times Higher Education Supplement

“This rather odd and wonderful book is as close to African American studies has come to a dance mix. The editors feel that [African American studies have] tended to concentrate on locating key historical moments and figures—and it’s time to get a bit more goofy. So here’s Room 222 and Emmett Till and Du Bois and Casablanca. Many of the contributors are European; they bring some deliciously fresh contributions to the diasporic stew.”—The Village Voice Literary Supplement

“Black Columbiad contains several articles which will make a considerable impact upon the individual scholarly fields to which they belong.”—Erika A. Kiss, Boston Book Review

“Thirty-five distinguished scholars, critics, and writers from around the world gather here to examine a great variety of moments that have defined the African-American experience.”—Nineteenth-Century Literature