Black Lives Under Nazism: Literary and Visual Sources

Join us as Professor Sarah Casteel shares a little-known chapter of World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration, Black writers and artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich.

This talk will illustrate how turning to literary and visual sources—including memoir, fiction, poetry, and internment art—can help to open up a neglected wartime history.

Sarah Phillips Casteel is Professor of English at Carleton University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She has written and co-edited five books, the most recent of which is Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visiblein Literature and Art (Columbia University Press, 2024). She has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Vienna and Potsdam and visiting fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg. The recipient of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Polanyi Prize, she is a member of the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University.

Free to the public. Reservations required.