German and Scandinavian Studies Program to Host Inauguaral Sara Lennox Lecture in Black German Studies: "Remapping Black German Studies"

The inaugural Sara Lennox Lecture in Black German Studies will take place on Tuesday, April 2, at 4.30 p.m. in the Hadley Room of the UMass Amherst Campus Center. The multipart program will feature a lecture by literary scholar Jeannette Oholi on "Remapping Black German Studies"; a conversation between Oholi and historian Tiffany Florvil; and a celebratory reception in the foyer of the Hadley Room. 

Jeannette Oholi is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Dartmouth College and specializes in Black German and European literatures. She has been academic consultant for Resonanzen, the first festival of Black German-Language fiction, which will take place for the second time this year.  

Tiffany Florvil is associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University specializing in African/Black diasporic communities, internationalism, race, gender, and sexuality. Her award-winning book, “Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement” (2020) was translated into German in spring 2023.   

The event, co-hosted by German Studies Program and the College of Humanities & Fine Arts (HFA), celebrates Professor Emerita Sara Lennox, a key figure for decades in establishing the field of Black German Studies in the U.S. and internationally. It will also launch the College’s Sara Lennox Endowment for Black German Studies. 

The Sara Lennox Endowment for Black German Studies was created in 2023 by former College of Humanites & Fine Arts Dean Barbara Krauthamer in collaboration with Professor Emerita Sara Lennox and Professor Emeritus Barton Byg. The purpose of the fund is to support Black German Studies at the University, including undergraduate or graduate student support, research, and special events as well as to expand transnational and transcultural connections in Black German and Black Diaspora Studies and further the growth of Black German Studies in its global context.   

At UMass Amherst, Lennox was involved in the landmark publication, "Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out" (1991) organized the pathbreaking conference at the University in 2006, “Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture,” and edited the resulting book of the same title (also UMass Press).  

In addition to advising and mentoring PhD candidates and scholars of Black German Studies at UMass and elsewhere, Lennox has been a leader in making Black German Studies a prominent focus of the German Studies Association (of which she was president from 2007 to 2008) and of the organization Women in German. She has been from the outset a close advisor to the Black German Heritage and Research Association and secured grant support for international research on Black German and Black European topics from both the Humboldt and Volkswagen Foundations. 

This event to honor Lennox and launch the endowment is made possible with generous contributions from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts; the Program of German and Scandinavian Studies; the Departments of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; History; and Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst, as well as the Department of German at Amherst College, the Department of German Studies at Mount Holyoke College, the Department of German and Italian at Smith College, and the School of Humanities and Arts at Hampshire College.