M.A. Cedric Essi (Wiss. Mitarbeiter)

Curriculum Vitae

• Lecturer at the Department of English-Speaking Cultures, University of Bremen (since April 2015)
• Lecturer at the chair of American Studies, esp. Literary and Cultural Studies, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (2011-2014)
• Dissertation project: “Interracial Family Memoirs: Reconstructing Genealogies across the Color Line” (since 2011)
• Lecturer at the English Language Department, University of Würzburg (2010)
• M.A. & Staatsexamen in American Studies, English Studies, and French Studies, University of Würzburg (2009)
• Teaching assistant for German as a foreign language in Auxerre, France (2005/06)

Fellowships & Grants

• 2017: Fulbright American Studies Award, UC Berkeley
• 2017: Dartmouth College, Futures of American Studies Institute, BAA Fellow
• 2014: DAAD Travel Grant to present a paper at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University, Chicago
• 2013: Yale University Research Fellowship (BAA), Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance
• 2013: Spring Academy, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
• 2013: Travel Grant from the Dr. Alfred-Vinzl-Foundation to present a paper at the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) in Atlanta
• 2012: BAA Summer Academy “Democratic Cultures, Past and Present,” Washington D.C.
• 2011: Harvard University Research Fellowship (BAA)
• 2011-2014: Graduate Fellowship of the Bavarian State (Bayerische Eliteförderung)
• 2008: BAA Summer Institute “Ethnicity and Society in America,” Munich

Courses

• “Introduction to English Literatures”
• “Critical Mixed Race Studies” together with Heike Paul as part of the 'Mixed Race Initiative' of the Asian American Literary Review
• “African American Autobiography”
• “Me, Myself, and I? Auto/Biographical Representations in North America”
• “Mixed Race in American Literature and Culture”
• “Aufbauseminar Culture”
• “Grundkurs Culture”
• “Translation: English-German”
• “Advanced English Practice”
• “German as a foreign language” (PAD)

Research

• African American Studies
• Critical Mixed Race Studies
• Critical Whiteness Studies
• Life Writing

Publications

• “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s, Too”: Toward Critical Mixed Race Studies.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 65.2 (2017): 161-72.
  
• “Return to Which Roots? Interracial Documemoirs by Macky Alston, Eliaichi Kimaro, and Mo Asumang.” Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture. Ed. Leigh Raiford and Heike Raphael-Hernandez. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017. 170-84.
  
• With Stephen Koetzing und Monika Sauter. COPAS: Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 15.1 (2014).
• “Transnational Affiliations in the Mixed Race Memoir: Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father.”American Lives. Hg. Alfred Hornung. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 261-81.
• “Black Like Who? Weiße Autoren und ethnische Minderheiten.” Anglophone Literaturdidaktik – Zukunftsperspektiven für den Englischunterricht. Ed. Julia Hammer et al. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 161-76.

Papers & Lectures

• “'Dads, Are We There Yet?' Queer Interracial Adoption & Autobiographical Calls for Recognition.” Gender Studies Lecture Series, University of Marburg, June 2018.
• “Queer Memoirs about Interracial Adoption: Domestic Intimacies, Public Interventions, and the Rise of Multiracialism.” Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies, FU Berlin, May 2018.
• “Coming Out as Family: Queer Interracial Kinship and the Closet(s) of Multiracialism.” Black Bag Speaker Series, Portland State University, Nov. 2017.
• “Cross-Racial Mothering as a ‘Conversion’ Experience: Jane Lazarre's Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons.” Learning at the Margins: The Creation and Dissemination of Knowledge among African Americans and Jews, German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., Sept. 2017.
• “The Allure of Diasporic Homecoming: Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father and Ika-Hügel Marshall’s Daheim Unterwegs.” Making America - Lecture Series, University of Bamberg, July 2017.
• “Interracial Family Memoirs: Claiming Genealogies across the Color Line.” Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College, June 2017.
• Panel Discussion. “Die Lage der Nation: Wissenschaft, Kultur und Politik in Zeiten von Donald Trump.” Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies, June 2017.
• “Travelling African American Studies.” Harvard Club of Munich-Alumni Event, Oct. 2016.
• “Amerikanistische Perspektiven auf rassismuskritische Pädagogik.” Fachtagung Ohne Angst Verschieden Sein, Jugendbildungstätte Unterfranken, Nov. 2016.
• “Interracial Family Memoirs: Claiming Genealogies across the Color Line.” Current Research in English and American Studies, University of Flensburg.
• “Interrogating Autobiographical Registers on Transracial Adoption.” Transnational and Transracial Adoption in North American Culture, University of Turku, August 2015.
• “MiscegeNation as a Family Secret: American Memoir and Interracial Kinship at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century.” W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures, Humboldt University of Berlin, Jan. 2015.
• “Transnational Quests for 'Kinfulness:' Afro-German and African American Mixed Race Memoirs.” Global Mixed Race: Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, DePaul University (Chicago), Nov. 2014.
• “Searching for Family across Race and Space: Interracial Family Documemoirs.” Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture, Schloss Herrenhausen (Hanover), Sept. 2014.
• “From Miscegenation to Melting Pot Rhetoric? The Politics of the Interracial Family Memoir and Critical Mixed Race Studies.” The Futures of Black Studies, University of Bremen, April 2014.
• “Back to Imaginary Homelands: Transnational Quests in Interracial Family Memoirs.” Transcultural Autobiography, University of Münster, March 2014.
• “Interracial Family Memoirs – Reconstructing Genealogies across the Color Line.” Brown Bag Lunch Talk Series, Yale University (New Haven), Sept. 2013.
• “A Gray Area: White Parents' Memoirs about Their Black Children.” HCA Spring Academy, Heidelberg, March 2013.
• “(Re)Constructing Interracial Families: Mixed Race Movements & Mixed Race Memoirs.” Collegium for African American Research (CAAR), Atlanta, March 2013.
• “Von Dienern, Heiligen und Afronauten – (Dis)Kontinuitäten schwarzer Präsenzen in der deutschen visuellen Kultur.” Public lecture at the exhibition “Homestory Deutschland – Schwarze Biografien in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” Nuremberg, Jan. 2013.
• “Rethinking Kinship: Interraciality & Family in Contemporary American Life Writing.” American Studies Colloquium, University of Göttingen, June 2012.
• “Transnational Affiliations in the Mixed Race Memoir: Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father.” Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS), Mainz, June 2012.
• “Washington's Interracial Genealogies: From Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama.” BAA Summer Academy “Democratic Cultures, Past and Present,” Washington, D.C., May 2012.
• “From Historiographic to Fictional Explorations of Interracial Intimacy under Slavery: Edward Ball'sSlaves in the Family and Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone.” Writing Slavery after Beloved, Université de Nantes, March 2012.
• “A House Divided? Interracial Genealogies in Contemporary American Life Writing.” American Civilization Workshop, Harvard University (Cambridge), Oct. 2011.
• “The Democratization of Ethnic Identification? Multiraciality in US American Culture.” BAA Summer Academy “Transatlantic American Studies,” Nuremberg, May 2011.

Organization of Conferences & Workshops

• “20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe with Stephen Small.” Schwankhalle Bremen, June 2018. (With Julia Borst)
• “Black Performance Studies Workshop with Lara-Sophie Milagro.” Doctoral Network Perspektiven in der Kulturanalyse, University of Bremen, Jan. 2018.
• “Black Performance Studies Workshop with Jaye Austin Williams” Doctoral Network 'Perspektiven in der Kulturanalyse,' University of Bremen, Aug. 2016.
• PGF Workshop (with Stephen Koetzing and Monika Sauter), Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS), Würzburg, June 2014.
• PGF – Postgraduate Forum of the GAAS (with Stephen Koetzing and Monika Sauter), Erlangen, Oct. 2013.
• Cultural Program and Funding of the Nuremberg Exhibit of “Homestory Deutschland: Schwarze Biographien in Geschichte und Gegenwart” (with Lydia Taylor, et al., in cooperation with the ISD), Jan./Feb. 2012.
• Workshop “Multiracial Genealogies in American Life Writing, Past and Present” (with Heike Paul), Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS), Mainz, June 2012.