Slavery is a recurring motif in the writings of Fred D'Aguiar, John Hearne and Caryl Phillips. They narrate the fates of silenced victims who share the traumatic experience of racial violence even if otherwise separated through time, space, and gender.

Fatim Boutros is an independent scholar focusing on diaspora studies, trauma studies, and visual cultures. After various positions as lecturer at the Universities of Erlangen and Bamberg, he became a research fellow of a Research Training Group funded by the German Research Foundation. His current postdoctoral project on jazz photography in the 1930s and 40s was initiated during a John W. Kluge Center Fellowship at the Library of Congress which was funded by the Bavarian American Academy.