Book Discussion: Anti-East European Racism in Germany: History and Present, by eds. Jannis Panagiotidis and Hans-Christian Petersen

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable will discuss the new book by Jannis Panagiotidis & Hans-Christian Petersen on anti-East European racism (forthcoming in April 2024). Building on historical work on the construction of Eastern Europe as a distinct and inferior space and on the racialization of its inhabitants (especially anti-Slavic racism), the authors explore the continuities of othering and racialization of Eastern Europe and East Europeans in Germany through WWII and post-1945. Focusing in particular on topics related to immigration from Eastern Europe and to scholarly production on the region, they draw on a range of sources such as oral history interviews of forced laborers (“Ostarbeiter”), pre- and post-1945 academic scholarship, media reports, visual sources, and autobiographic literature by immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Poland to argue for the necessity to include Eastern Europe and East Europeans in debates about race in Germany post-1945 and post-1989. This roundtable will bring together experts on German history, migration history, and on issues of migration, race and whiteness with a view to Eastern Europe to discuss the key arguments made and issues raised in this book.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Thuc Linh Nguyen Vu, U of Vienna (Austria) / Harvard U

Roundtable Members

• John F. Connelly, UC Berkeley

• Ivan Kalmar, U of Toronto (Canada)

• Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Arizona State U

• Lauren Stokes, Northwestern U