For the lecture series “Transformations of Political Violence: New Perspectives”, our Visiting Fellow Jephta Nguherimo will talk about the transgenerational memory of the OvaHerero people's genocide and the ongoing struggle for restorative justice in Namibia. TraCe member Kaya de Wolff will moderate the event and present their current collaborative activist-scholar research projects.
When? Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 6-8 p.m.
Where? Goethe University Frankfurt, Campus Westend, Room: Cas. 1.811
Jephta U. Nguherimo is a reparation activist, poet and a former professional labor negotiator of Herero-descent based in Washington D.C. He has been instrumental in the reparation movement for the OvaHerero and Nama genocides over the last three decades and was the co-founder of the OvaHerero, Ovambanderu, and Nama Genocide Institute (ongi.org) in the US. Beside this, he organized conferences and other platforms that eventually forced the German government to confront and acknowledge the Genocide of 1904-08.
In his collaborative activist-scholar work he has produced a series of papers with TraCe member Kaya de Wolff which they jointly presented at academic conferences including the “New Perspectives of Memory Studies and Social Movements & Conflict Studies in Dialogue Conference in Berlin” (September and October 2023) and “Rethinking our communicative past. Radical and Reparatory Approaches” (April 2024, Loughborough University London). He was invited to speak as a guest lecturer of the TraCe-Roundtable “Rethinking Cosmopolitan Memory in Postcolonial Contexts” at Goethe University Frankfurt, 2+3 May 2024, where he also engaged in a workshop with members of the TraCe working area Memories of Political Violence. Following up on these fruitful conversations, Astrid Erll and Kaya de Wolff invited him to be a TraCe visiting fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt from October 2024 to December 2024.
The lecture series “Transformations of Political Violence: New Perspectives” showcases new approaches to the changing forms, institutions, and interpretations of political violence as they are studied within TraCe. It brings together perspectives from history, sociology, political sciences, and cultural studies with activist voices.
The presentation takes place at Campus Westend and will be held in English. There will be no live stream, but the event will be recorded.