Jason Owens (South Dakota State University): German Identities in Southern Africa.

This paper examines the German presence in Namibia—the former German South West Africa—and its neighbors from the colonial period in the 30 years following the 1884 Berlin Conference (during which more Germans settled in the territory than in all other colonies of the German Empire combined) to the role of German-speakers there and in the FRG/GDR in ending apartheid. Based on the presenter’s interviews with those involved in bringing black Namibian children to East Germany to escape Pretoria’s reaches and on their writings and art, the paper chronicles the extent to which the acquired a German habitus before returning as teenagers to a post-apartheid country whose white German and Afrikaner (themselves originally formed from Dutch, German and French Huguenots immigrants) institutions found themselves torn between tradition and the need to open their “private club” social/state institutions—including schools and media—to all races while holding onto their linguistic heritage. The presentation compares the high profile of German-speakers in the former German colony to the ties between the less-focused on Germans in South Africa and their links to their distant mother country as expressed by their writings, including those poems found in their organizations’ yearbooks and Heimatskalender.


Jennie Enger (North Dakota State University): Black, White, and Biracial: Identity Issues in Nella Larsen’s Passing.

Nella Larsen’s Passing has baffled critics ever since the novel was published in 1929. Recently, critics such as Cheryl Wall have turned to analyzing issues of racism and sexism in order to gain additional insight into Larsen’s characters. Other critics such as Jennifer DeVere Brody argue that only looking at aspects of racism or sexism reduce Passing’s protagonists to one dimensional characters, which they are not. She suggests that to fully understand complex characters like Clare and Irene, scholars must consider how a variety of identity issues like race, sexuality, and class intercept in the characters’ lives. On the other hand, George Hutchinson believes that Larsen’s primary goal in Passing is to explain the difficulties of being biracial in a world divided by black and white racial identities.

I agree with Hutchinson’s argument and apply it to Passing’s complex and often criticized conclusion in order to provide insight into Larsen’s commentary on the difficulties of being biracial in America during the Harlem Renaissance. I argue that Larsen’s use of Clare and Irene and Irene and Jack Bellew as psychological doubles reveals what living in a world divided by race means for a biracial individual, such as Clare, who seeks acceptance from the white and African American cultures she has descended from. When looking at Passing’s conclusion from this perspective, the conclusion no longer falls short but reveals a new set of complex issues which are in many ways much more intriguing than Clare’s death or who is responsible for it.

Benjamin Smith (Minnesota State University Moorhead): Fluid Identities: The Case for Galician-Portuguese in Spain.

Spain has three peripheral nations: Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia. All three have wielded political weight over the centuries but of the literary traditions, only Galicia and Galician-Portuguese has found the most prestige. In the Middle Ages, Alfonso X believed that Galician-Portuguese was by far a more beautiful and poetic language despite his push for Castilian as the official language of the nation he was trying to build. What is it about this language nestled in the Northwest corner of Spain that holds so much intrigue? Galician has so much in common with Portuguese that speakers in northern Portugal have no problems with mutual comprehension. Travel between Portugal and Galicia is facilitated by modern highways and oceanic causeways that share common industries. Yet, despite this commercial connection, Galicia maintains it's most intimate contact with Spain. Despite the political upheavals of the 20th Century, Galicia's powerful influence is felt in Spanish political circles. It is the home to Manuel Fraga, literally Generalissimo Franco's right-hand man who somehow has maintained relevance 30 years after the death of the maligned dictator. Lastly, it is of no mere consequence that the foremost scholar and philologist from Spain in the last century, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, called Galicia his home. This presentation will examine Alfonso the Wise's initial assessment of the aesthetics of language and the linguistic underpinnings this modern cultural quandary.