BGHRA 2026 CFP
Black Archives, Black Futures: Enfleshment
According to Silvia Posocco in Substance, Sign, and Trace: Performative Analogies and Technologies of Enfleshment in the Transnational Adoption archives in Guatemala, “through archival materials, the ‘mattering forth’ of carnality and enfleshment reaches into the present, frequently in the form of an absence.”
In his book Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human, Alexander Weheliye discusses how, through enfleshment, human beings who have otherwise been excluded from liberal category of “Man” would embody alternative and not-yet-fully-explored modes of being human that call into question our understanding of liberation, resistance, and agency.
For our 2026 conference—Black Archives, Black Futures: Enfleshment—we will explore archival, pedagogical, and artistic practices that help us to envision futures that also stem from different understandings of the past and present not beholden to the same logics that produced “Man.”
The rekinning of the Black German population across generational and geographical borders is a form of Enfleshment—a moving out of the holds of memory and the writings of history into the arms of our families. How do we account for this dramatic shift in our pedagogies and artwork? How do we continue this movement from the archives to the flesh?
This year’s three-day, virtual event, “Black Archives, Black Futures: Enfleshment,” will be held on February 26–28, 2026. As always, our online conference is free and open to the public.
In addition to our customary keynotes, films/filmmakers, and panel presentations, this year we are pleased to announce that we have added three workshops to our program.
Our Digital Archives Workshop will be facilitated by Dr. Sonya Donaldson. For more information and to apply, please CLICK HERE
Our pedagogy workshop entitled Teaching Ethical Black German and European Cultural Studies will be facilitated by Dr. Emily Frazier-Rath. For more information and to apply, please CLICK HERE
Our final workshop, Artistic Self Expressions facilitated by Zari Harat, will be open to all conference attendees. Any art supplies needed to participate fully in this event will be posted on the conference website by early February.
The BGHRA Review Committee invites proposals for panels and papers that engage the multiplicity and diversity of the powerful transcultural experiences and cultural production of Black people of German heritage, as well as those reflecting Black experiences throughout Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe.
We invite submissions for potential twenty-minute presentations on one of three academic panels, for presentations from graduate and undergraduate students delivered in poster format, or for participation in one of two sessions devoted to artistic and cultural activism, life writing, oral history, and memoir. Proposals for roundtable discussions, film screenings, and performances are also welcome.
Please send a 250-350 word abstract and a CV or short biographical statement to info(at)bghra.org by December 15, 2025.
Confirmations will be delivered by January 5, 2026.