Blackening Europe

This collection explores the social products and meaning of Europe's fascination with African America. After a historiographical review, the volume divides into three parts. Part I examines early, classic influences (jazz, Josephine Baker, Katherine Dunham) through an Afro-centric perspective. Part II looks at contemporary cross-fertilizations like Finnish Pop and Hungarian Rap to mark the development of cultural relations. Lastly, through essays that question the Enlightenment's silence on slavery, the growth an anti-immigrant politics, and the integration of gypsies in Romania, Part III submits a theory of Europe's blackening, a draft model of how race and ethnicity can be understood in a unavoidably multicultural Europe.