Fatima El-Tayeb

Fatima El-Tayeb joins Yale as Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She arrives from the University of California, San Diego where she was a member of the departments of Literature and Ethnic Studies and director of Critical Gender Studies. She received an MA in American Studies and Modern European History and a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research interests include Black Europe, comparative diaspora studies, queer of color critique, critical Muslim studies, decolonial theory, transnational feminisms, visual culture studies, race and technology, and critical European studies. Her publications deconstruct structural racism in “colorblind” Europe and center strategies of resistance among racialized communities, especially those that politicize culture through an intersectional, queer practice.

She is the author of three books - Schwarze Deutsche. ‘Rasse’ und nationale Identität 1890 – 1933 (2001), European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (2011) and Undeutsch. Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft (2016) and numerous articles on the interactions of race, gender, sexuality, religion and nation, most recently “‘The Universal Museum.’ How the New Germany built its Future on Colonial Amnesia” in Nka. Journal for Contemporary African Art and “Beyond Trigger Warnings: Safety, Securitization, and Queer Left Critique” with Neel Ahuja, Paul Amar, Aniruddha Dutta, Kwame Holmes and Sherene Seikaly, in: Social Text 38/4: Left of Queer. She is currently co-editing (with Maria Stehle) a special issue on Time, Urgency, and Collaboration in the Corporate University for Feminist Formations. Her ongoing research projects explore the intersecting legacies of colonialism, fascism, and socialism in Europe and the potential of (queer) people of color alliances in decolonizing the continent. In addition to her academic work, she co-wrote (with Angelina Maccarone) the Black lesbian screwball comedy Alles wird gut/Everything Will be Fine (1997) and is active in Black feminist, migrant, and queer of color organizations in Europe and the US.