The Racial Ruse: On Blackness and Blackface Comedy in fin‐de‐siècle Germany

This article explores the role of blackface minstrelsy within German culture at the turn of the twentieth century. I argue that blackface's presence in the colonial and global world of the fin de siècle had the effect of forcing a reevaluation and reinterpretation of the very notion of what it meant to be German in modernity. I trace the construction of blackface as a racial ruse within a discursive nexus of psychology, comic theory, and mass culture. After developing a theoretical model for the German reception of blackface, I discuss the function of blackness and blackface within comic theory, in particular the writings of Theodor Lipps and Emile Kraepelin. I then look at how blackness and blackface “comedy” were taken up in the literary realm by Oskar Panizza, whose texts of the 1890s elevate race and racial masquerade to essential components of modern culture. Finally, I conclude by suggesting some ways in which my reading of blackface remains relevant for thinking about race and blackness in Germany today.