Senit Kidane

Senit Kidane (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Africana Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis with a double major in African and African American Studies, & Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and her M.A. from Brown University in Africana Studies. Senit’s research explores the relationships between bodily autonomy, theories of self-determination, and feminist political mobilization as it relates to Black nationalist movements, with a particular focus on the Eritrean nationalist period and independence struggle. Her methods include oral history, archival research, and cultural analysis. She is especially interested in the history of music and literature as a means of subversive critique throughout African diasporas. Her studies are generously supported by the Benjamin Franklin/Fontaine Fellowship.