Developing from the MPIWG's History of Science ON CALL video project, the Institute’s Colloquium 2020/21 seeks to bring to the fore various insights into local, regional, and international cooperation and academic work prompted by Covid-19.

“Black-German Intellectual Activism in the Past and Present”

Tiffany Florvil

Black German activist-intellectuals have long campaigned for rights and equality in Germany and beyond. In doing so, these individuals produced new knowledge, opening spaces for intellectualism and countering their invisibility in the German nation. This presentation argues that Black Germans have consistently demanded recognition and justice for People of Color in a majority-white nation. Examining the activism of May Ayim, Katherina Oguntoye, and others across the late 20th century, Florvil demonstrates how the current Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 has parallels with 1980s and 1990s Germany, which dealt with its own crises.

Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil is an Associate Professor of 20th-century European Women’s and Gender History at the University of New Mexico. She specializes in the histories of post-1945 Europe, the African/Black diaspora, social movements, feminism, Black internationalism, gender and sexuality, and emotions.

“A Feminist Bioethic of Grief”

Yolonda Wilson

In thinking about crisis and capacity from a humanistic standpoint, Wilson shines a lens on grief during a time of global pandemic occurring simultaneously with a global call for racial justice. Specifically she is interested in two questions: (1) What does it mean to “feel” another’s pain? and (2) How do communities work through grief when the usual cultural mechanisms are not available?

Yolonda Wilson is a recent fellow at the National Humanities Center (2019–20), and she is also a recent Encore Public Voices Fellow (2019–20). Her research interests include bioethics, social and political philosophy, race theory, and feminist philosophy. Professor Wilson’s work centers on race and gender justice, particularly in the health care realm.