This year's international VAD conference, “Africa in Context: Historical and Contemporary Interactions with the World,” will take place at the University of Hannover from June 2-5, 2004 . Six comprehensive daily sessions on world art, literature, and music; social movements; colonialism; religion; and global contacts , as well as a limited number of morning and afternoon events, offer a framework for intensive discussion of selected topics from current Africa-related research and scholarship.

The congress wants to contribute to the liberation of perceptions of Africa from its usual isolation and to point out how variously the regions of Africa are and have been linked to the world.

With the collaboration of the University of Music and Drama, the Kestner Gesellschaft, and the African literature department at the Humboldt University Berlin, we would like to set a new accent: not only to discuss “World Art, Literature, and Music in Africa” as a dialogue of modernity, but to open it to experience through performance.

In 2004, we should be reminded of the crisis of German colonialism 100 years ago; thus, we shall discuss colonialism and its genocidal elements in the context of modernity and search out comparisons. A public forum is designed to make clear how difficult German society has made it to work through this process appropriately and resolve its colonial past.

We are pleased that the conference is marked by international and interdisciplinary emphases. We would especially like to mention the colleagues who broaden our horizons through their engagement with Latin America.

New to the conference is the emphasis on young scholarship. The VAD will award a young scholars' prize for the first time. Additionally, young scholars have an exceptional opportunity to network and exchange information in a series of special events for postgraduates.