Tiffany N. Florvil
Associate Professor
Email: tflorvil@unm.edu
Phone: (505) 277-2451
Office: Mesa Vista 2080
Personal Website
Education:
Ph.D. University of South Carolina, 2013
M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007
B.A., Florida State University, 2003
Research Interests:
20th Century Europe, Germany, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, War and Society, Politics and Economy, Frontiers and Borderlands
Research Statement:
Professor Florvil is a historian of the modern and late modern period in Europe, especially social movements, gender and sexuality, emotions, and the African diaspora. Her manuscript, Both Black and German: Women and the Making of a Movement, is a cultural history of the interplay of emotions, social activism, transnational feminism, and the African/Black diaspora in Germany, in which she explores the emergence of the Black German movement of the 1980s and 1990s and traces the evolution of a Black German intellectual and activist tradition inspired by Caribbean-American feminist poet Audre Lorde. She has written several articles that revolve around the Black German movement and its transnational connections as well as gendered aspects of Black German activism. Together with Vanessa Plumly, Florvil has co-edited a volume, Rethinking Black German Studies: Approaches, Interventions and Histories with Peter Lang Press (2018). Florvil has organized with Vanessa Plumly two German Studies Association (GSA) seminars: one entitled "Black German Studies Then and Now" in 2014 and another entitled "Political Activism in the Black European Diaspora: From Theory to Praxis" in 2015. She is the Co-Chair, along with Vanessa Plumly, Sara Lennox and Andrew Zimmerman, of the Black Diaspora Studies Network at the German Studies Association, in which she has organized numerous panels and roundtables. She was also the Co-Chair, along with Heikki Lempa and Derek Hillard, of the Emotion Network at the German Studies Association in 2017. She also is a digital humanist, serving as the Co-Founder, Network Editor, and Advisory Board Member for H-Black-Europe and a Co-Founder and Network Editor of H-Emotions. She blogs for Black Perspectives published by the African American Intellectual History Society and also is a part of the transnational group Black Central Europe.
Profile:
Hailing from South Florida, Professor Florvil joined the Department of History in 2013 as a historian of Comparative Women's and Gender in Europe. Her areas of interest include race and ethnicity, gender, identity formation, social and cultural movements, black internationalism, intellectualism, diasporas, and emotions. Her familial connections to the Caribbean and experiences attending schools in Germany, Florida, Wisconsin, and the South as well as working at a research institution in London, England have informed her pedagogy, shaping how she works with diverse.
Recent/Select Publications:
“Queer Memory and Black Germans,” The New Fascism Syllabus: Exploring the New Right
Through Scholarship and Civic Engagement, June, 8, 2021
“A New Day Dawns in Germany: Black Queer Women Resuscitating Darkness in the Urban
Space,” Nocturnal Unrest, May 20, 2021 (co-written with Jeannette Oholi and Vanessa
Plumly)
“Black Germans and New Forms of Resistance,” Black Perspectives, May 17, 2021
“Beyond Shorelines: Audre Lorde’s Queered Belonging,” Black Perspectives, February 15,
2021
“Zur Beständigkeit der Graswurzel. Transnationale Perspektiven auf Schwarzen Antirassismus im
Deutschland des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Special Issue “(Anti-)Rassismus,” Aus Politik und
Zeitgeschichte (APuZ) 70, no. 42-44 (Oktober 2020): 33-38**
"Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making a Transnational
Movement." (University of Illinois Press, 2020)
“Connected Differences: Black German Feminists and Their Transnational Connections in the 1980s and 1990s,” in Friederike Bruehoefener, Karen Hagemann, and Donna Harsch, eds. Gendering Post-1945 German History: Entanglements (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019), 229-249 [invited contribution]
"Distant Ties: May Ayim’s Transnational Solidarity and Activism,” in Keisha Blain and Tiffany M. Gill, eds. To Turn this Whole World Over: Black Women's Internationalism during the Twentieth Century (University of Illinois Press forthcoming 2019)
“Black German Feminists and their Transnational Connections of the 1980s and 1990s,” in
Friederike Bruehoefener, Karen Hagemann, and Donna Harsch, eds. Gendering Post-1945 Germany History: Entanglements (New York: Berghahn, 2018), chapter 10
Race and Intersectionality,” Forum: Feminism and German Studies, The German Quarterly, Vol.
91, No. 2 (April 2018): 207-209 [invited contribution]
Public Writing
Florvil and Plumly, eds. Rethinking Black German Studies: Approaches, Interventions and Histories (London: Peter Lang, 2018)
Guest Editor, “Introduction: Traversing the Borders of Anti-Racist and Civil Rights Activism,” Special issue, Journal of Civil and Human Rights (Summer 2018): 1-4
“Race and Intersectionality,” Forum: Feminism and German Studies, The German Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 2 (April 2018)
“Transnational Feminist Solidarity, Black German Women, and the Politics of Belonging,” in Toyin Falola and Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, eds. Gendering Knowledge in Africa and the African Diaspora: Contesting History and Power (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 87-110
“Emotional Connections: Audre Lorde and Black German Women,” in Stella Bolaki and Sabine Broeck, eds. Audre Lorde's Transnational Legacies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 135-147
Awards:
Finalist for ASWAD’s Outstanding First Book Prize 2021
Honorable Mention for the DAAD/GSA Book Prize in Literature/Cultural Studies, German Studies Association, 2021
Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS) First Book Prize in 2020, 2021
Finalist for Outstanding First Book Prize, Association for the Study of the Worldwide
African Diaspora (ASWAD), 2021
Nominated, Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, University of New Mexico, Spring
2021
Newberry Library German Studies Seminar, March 12, 2021, “Shirley Graham’s Affinity
with Germany,” 2020-2021
NCFDD Faculty Success Program Scholarship, Division of Equity and Inclusion, University
of New Mexico, funding for participation in the NCFDD Faculty Success Program in
spring 2021, May 2020
Research/Teaching Award, Department of History, University of New Mexico, June 2020
Summer Research Assistance, Department of History, University of New Mexico, Summer
2020
Funding for participation in the NCFDD Faculty Success Program in spring 2021,
ADVANCE, University of New Mexico, June 2020
Exploratory Faculty Fellow, Student Experience Project (SEP), University of New Mexico,
2020
American Association of University Women (AAUW), American Postdoctoral Fellowship,
Alternate, 2018-2019
Research/Teaching Award, funding for the 2018 “Defining Black European History”
Conference, Department of History, University of New Mexico, summer 2017
German Historical Institute, funding for the 2018 “Defining Black European History”
Conference, fall 2016
Dr. Richard M. Hunt Fellowship for the Study of German Politics, Society, and Culture,
American Council on Germany, summer 2016
Dr. Richard M. Hunt Fellowship For the Study of German Politics, Society, and Culture, American Council on Germany, 2015-2016
William Shoemaker Endowment, Department of History, University of New
Mexico, Spring 2015 [for The History Department Colloquium]
Faculty Research Grant, Feminist Research Institute, University of New Mexico, Spring 2014
Distinguished Graduate Scholar, Office of the Vice President of Research, University of
South Carolina, Spring 2013
College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, University of South
Carolina, 2012-2013
Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, Free University of Berlin,
Berlin, Germany, Alternate, 2012-2013
Rhude M. Patterson Trustee Graduate Fellowship, The Graduate School, University of
South Carolina, Spring 2012
Becht Family Endowment Fund Dissertation Preparation Fellowship, History
Department, University of South Carolina, Spring 2012
German Academic Exchange Service/Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst
(DAAD), Graduate Research Fellowship, 2011-2012
Ceny Walker Graduate Fellowship, Walker Institute of International and Area Studies,
University of South Carolina, Summer 2011
Graduate Travel Grant Award, The Graduate School, University of South Carolina, 2010,
2012
Departmental Travel Funding, History Department, University of South Carolina, 2010,
2011
Smith Richardson Summer Research Award, History Department, University of South
Carolina, Summer 2009
Wilfrid and Rebecca Callcott Fellowship, History Department, University of South
Carolina, 2008-2010
Graduate Student Fellowship Program in Berlin, Germany, Trans-Atlantic Summer
Institute in German Studies (TASI), Center for European Studies, University of
Minnesota, Summer 2005
Advanced Opportunity Fellow, The Graduate School, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
2004-2007
Beyond Borders, Cultural Exchange in Dresden, Germany, Florida State University,
Summer 2002
Getrude Gray Fellowship Fund, Community Foundation of Broward County, 2000-2003
Congress-Bundestag Scholarship, Youth For Understanding, International Exchange,
Hamburg, Germany, July 1999-July 2000
Courses:
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll (capstone)
- Western Civilization from 1648 to the Present (Undergraduate)
- Gender and Race after Hitler (Undergraduate and Graduate)
- Gender in the Modern World (Undergraduate)
- Gender and Race in post-World War II Film (Undergraduate)
- Seminar: 1968 in Global Perspective (Graduate)
- Modern Germany
