Iris Wigger Livres

Seventeen essays written by a team of international scholars aim collectively at critically reflecting on the historical genesis of modern racism from its constitution in early Modernity, and its systematisation in the Enlightenment period, to various forms of its popularisation in Modern Society. This structure derives from the work of Wulf D. Hund to whom this edited collection is dedicated. Inspired by his analysis of racialised discourses in European thought and global history, the book will show modern racism from different perspectives to be a mode of a negative societalisation. With contributions by: Max Hering Torres / Gary Taylor / Charles W. Mills / Robert Bernasconi / Werner Goldschmidt / Sabine Ritter / David R. Roediger / Iris Wigger / Audrey Smedley / Antje Kühnast / Simone Beate Borgstede / Micha Brumlik / Lars Lambrecht / Stefanie Affeldt / Michael Pickering / Malte Hinrichsen / Nadine Anumba.

Focusing on the 'Black Horror' campaign, the book delves into its role in shaping racial discourse in early 20th-century Europe. Emerging in the 1920s in Germany, this racist campaign targeted French colonial troops, using media to propagate harmful stereotypes of black soldiers as threats to white women. Wigger analyzes how race, gender, nation, and class intersected to create a network of discrimination that resonated across Europe, the US, and Australia. The work provides a critical examination of a neglected aspect of popular racism and advocates for a historically informed understanding of its complexities.

This book explores the 'Black Horror' campaign as an important chapter in the popularisation of racialised discourse in European history. Originating in early 1920s Germany, this international racist campaign was promoted through modern media, targeting French occupation troops from colonial Africa on German soil and using stereotypical images of 'racially primitive', sexually depraved black soldiers threatening and raping 'white women' in 1920s Germany to generate widespread public concern about their presence. The campaign became an international phenomenon in Post-WWI Europe, and had followers throughout Europe, the US and Australia. Wigger examines the campaign's combination of race, gender, nation and class as categories of social inclusion and exclusion, which led to the formation of a racist conglomerate of interlinked discriminations. Her book offers readers a rare insight into a widely forgotten chapter of popular racism in Europe, and sets out the benefits of a historically reflexive study of racialised discourse and its intersectionality.