Here are the 2023 recipients of our Diversity and Inclusion Grants. These grants have been created to support scholars and programs in their efforts to diversify German studies in Canada.
On this page, you will find links to any resources or recordings created through these initiatives. This year we are funding three Graduate Research Grants and two Curriculum and Programming Grants.
Graduate Research Grants
Susanna Cassisa, Master of Arts in Germanic Studies, University of British Columbia
Groomer Rumor
Over the last three years, the term “groomer” has emerged as a political weapon against the LGBTQ+ community to conflate queerness with child abuse. However, the sentiment behind this rhetoric is nothing new. Groomer Rumor is a podcast and experimental master’s thesis that explores the historical roots and functions of this ongoing moral panic that labels queer people as sexual predators. The podcast uses historical examples from Germany and the United States to trace the weaponization of this trope against the LGBTQ+ community over the last century.
Read UBC's announcement about Sussana's project!
Ajibola Fabusuyi, PhD Candidate in German Studies, University of British Columbia
Becoming in Black German Autobiographical Nonfiction and Documentary Filmmaking
This PhD dissertation explores the idea of Black becoming in selected Black German autobiographical nonfictional cultural texts and film through Sankofa philosophy, a cultural aesthetic that centers on Black life, dislocation, and diasporicity in the West through a backward-forward glance. In this regard, Black becoming is a procedure that describes the deliberate spiritual and intellectual project undertaken in the diaspora of immersing oneself in the history, cultures, values, traditions, and philosophies of one's ancestral community.
Read UBC's announcement about Ajibola's project!
Christian Zeitz, PhD Candidate in Cinema Studies, University of Toronto
Between Orientalism and the Posthuman: 21st-Century Television Programming in Multicultural Germany
This PhD dissertation draws on recent theories of posthumanism as a means to rethink the status and significance of Orientalism and Islamophobia in contemporary German TV narratives.
Read more about Christian's work from UofT!
Curriculum and Programming Grants
Sophie Jordan, Germanic Language and Literatures, University of Toronto
Reading Blackness and Race in Germanic Arthurian Romance
The goal of this project is to highlight the diversity of Germanic experiences and peoples during the high Middle Ages. By developing online educational resources for an advanced undergraduate course module on blackness and race in medieval Arthurian texts, other instructors will be able to more easily incorporate this perspective into their courses.
Read more about Sophie from UofT!
Project Outcomes:
Based on original research, the project ‘Reading Blackness and Race in Germanic Arthurian Romance’ aims to make teaching about blackness in medieval German and Dutch literature accessible to a wide range of post-secondary educators. To this end, Sophie has created a series of free and fully adaptable interactive materials as well as detailed lesson plans that can be accessed via this link on Pressbooks.
The goal of these materials is to highlight the diversity of Germanic experiences and peoples reflected in the literature of the High Middle Ages. Instructors teaching courses on diversity in German culture, on medieval German studies, or on other related topics, can now access, use and adapt these materials without the need for further research and with very minimal preparation.
The knowledge that 13th and 14th century writers portrayed complex, multi-faceted yet successful black Arthurian knights will support students’ grasp of issues such as diversity and inclusivity in the past, present, and future, with the broader aim of better understanding and ultimately combatting racism. The lessons encourage learners to start thinking about how skin colour relates to the concept of race via a discussion-focused approach and a series of short readings in the original Middle Dutch language. Some of the central elements of Critical Race Theory are introduced, bringing awareness to an important and rapidly growing field. In addition, these materials expose learners to an under-represented Germanic language, along with excerpts of a rarely studied medieval text, the Middle Dutch Moriaen. Due to its close linguistic connections both with English and German, Middle Dutch is an ideal, accessible and fun addition to any medievalist or Germanist’s skillset.
Elizabeth "Biz" Nijdam, Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, University of British Columbia
Games for Decolonization
Games for Decolonization is a collaboration between UBC scholars and Indigenous community members, game consultants, and designers that explores how digital and analog games are valuable tools in decolonizing teaching and learning in German/European and Migration studies. The ultimate goal of this project is the design a series of digital microgames and a board game that illuminate some of settler colonialism's mechanisms of oppression while educating on issues of Indigenous sovereignty and food security within academic and community settings.
Collaborators: David Plamonden (Cree), and Jayde Gravel (Metis) of Pe Metawe Consulting, Biz Nijdam (UBC) and Markus Hallensleben (UBC)
Read UBC's announcement about Biz's project!