‘Négritude’ as a critique of civilisation in prose fiction and cultural theory of German and French avant-gardes

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the question of how ‘blackness’ was brought up in literary and theoretical texts of the avant-gardes, not only in France but also in Germany, for although Germany lost its colonies after the First World War, it was still characterised by its colonial past as well as by the newer African American entertainment culture. This complex situation was the subject of cultural criticism from various sides and prose fiction also became part of this discourse on blackness, with German and French authors corresponding closely with each other in this respect. When a specifically ‘black’ theory and practice of culture emerged in France a good 10 years later with the ‘Négritude’-movement and ‘Présence africaine’, it tied in with the already existing ‘white’ discourse on blackness – albeit in very different ways: while Césaire derives identity politics from a history of violence from the outset, Senghor mobilises primarily anthropological arguments to the end.