Dr. Cedric Essi

Research Associate in Subproject C03 "Literature as Property between Law and Culture"

CRC 1385 "Law and Literature"
Osnabrück University, Faculty 7
Neuer Graben 40
49074 Osnabrück
cedric.essi@uni-osnabrueck.de

  • Research areas

    • Cultural Legal Studies: Critical Race Theory, Copyright, Property

    • Black Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, Critical Mixed Race Studies

    • Critical Kinship Studies

    • Queer Studies

    • Life Writing

  • Vita

    • since 2019: Research assistant at the CRC 1385
    • 2017: Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Department of African American Studies, UC Berkeley
    • 2015-2019: Lecturer, American Studies, Department of English-Speaking Cultures, University of Bremen
    • 2012: BAA Fellow, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
    • 2014-2015: Lecturer , American Studies, Department of English and American Studies, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
    • 2011-2018: Doctorate in American Studies, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (Interracial Family Memoirs: Claiming Genealogies across the Color Line)
    • 2003-2009: Master of Arts American Studies and Staatsexamen in English and French, JMU Würzburg 

  • Publications

    Book

    1. Interracial Family Memoirs: Claiming Genealogies across the Color Line (under contract with Wayne State University Press).

    Editorship

    1. Associate editor of Amerikastudien / American Studies (since May 2019).
    2. Common Grounds? American Democracy after Trump. Special Issue of Amerikastudien / American Studies 66/1 (2021) (with Heike Paul and Boris Vormann).
    3. Co-editor of COPAS (2017-2020).
    4. Interrogating White Supremacy in the United States and Beyond. Special Issue of COPAS 20/2 (2019) (with Samira Spatzek et al.).
    5. COPAS: Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 15/1 (2014) (with Monika Sauter and Stephen Koetzing).

    Papers

    1. "Critical Race Theory." In: Silvan Niedermeier (ed.): Handbuch Rassismus in den USA. UTB 2023.
    2. "Der Fall Patricia J. Williams: Critical Race Theory als vermittelnde Hermeneutik zwischen Recht und Literatur." In: Gideon Stiening (ed.): Zum Verhältnis zwischen den Hermeneutiken des Rechts und der Literatur. de Gruyter 2023.
    3. "The Parent as Citizen: Jane Lazarre's Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons." In: Storied Citizenship: Imagining the Citizen in North American Literature. Special Issue of Amerikastudien / American Studies 65/4 (2020): 491-510.
    4. "Queer Futurity." In: Heike Paul (ed.): Critical Terms in Futures Studies. Palgrave 2019. 253-259.
    5. "COPAS at Twenty: Interrogating White Supremacy in the United States and Beyond." In: White Supremacy in the United  States and Beyond. COPAS 20/2 (2019): 1-17 (with Samira Spatzek et al.).
    6. "Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children's Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation. In: Genealogy and Multiracial Family Histories. Special issue of Genealogy 43/2 (2018): 1-20.
    7. "'Mama's Baby, Papa's, Too': Toward Critical Mixed Race Studies." In: Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 65/2 (2017): 161-172.
    8. "Return to Which Roots? Interracial Documemoirs by Macky Alston, Eliaichi Kimaro, and Mo Asumang." In: Leigh Raiford and Heike Raphael-Hernandez (eds.): Moving and Migrating the Black Body in Visual Culture. University of Washington Press 2017. 170-183. 
    9. "Transnational Affiliations in the Mixed Race Memoir: Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father." In: Alfred Hornung (ed.): American Lives. Heidelberg University Press Winter 2013. 261-281.
    10. "Black Like Who? Weiße Autoren und ethnische Minderheiten." In: Julia Hammer et al. (eds.): Anglophone Literaturdidaktik: Zukunftsperspektiven für den Englischunterricht. Heidelberg University Press Winter 2012. 161-176. 

    Reviews/Smaller works

    1. Wind Done Gone vs. Gone with the Wind: Demolition of an American Classic. The Trans-Atlanticist, Series: LadyFiction 2022 (Podcast).
    2. Review of: Black Mixed-Race Men: Transatlanticity, Hybridity and 'Post-Racial' Resilience, by Remi Joseph-Salisbury. In: Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies 2/1 (2022): 279-281.
    3. "The Transnational Dimensions of Anti-Black Policing and Black Resistance: An Interview with Vanessa E. Thompson." In: American Democracy after Trump. Special Issue of Amerikastudien / American Studies 66/1 (2021): 241-246. 
    4. "Black Lives Matter: Wieviel zählt Schwarzes Leben?" Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Reihe 'USA 2020'.
    5. Review of: Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism, by Habiba Ibrahim. In: Amerikastudien / American Studies 63/1 (2018): 24-27.

  • Talks (selection)

    1. "Critical Race Theory in German American Studies." Keynote, Student Conference Breaking the Silence, HU Berlin, 06/2022.

    2. "Copyrighting Neo-Confederate Truth." Lecture Series Praxeologies of Truth, Erfurt University, 05/2022.

    3. "The Slave's Narrative as Literary Property." LCH Conference Unsettling Law, Emory University, 06/2022.

    4. "Intersectionality, Copyright and the Afterlives of Slavery." Conference Blackness and the Knowledge(s) of Intersectionality, BAA Amerikahaus Munich, 04/2022.

    5. "The Feeling of Interracial Kinship in the Post-Civil Rights Era." Lecture Series In the Mood for Affect, WWU Münster, 01/2022.

    6. "Structural Racism after Trump." Keynote, BAA Students Conference Structural Racism in the United States, University of Passau, 07/2021.

    7.  "Breathing while Black." REAF Video Lecture Series Transnational Perspectives on the COVID Pandemic, Regensburg University, 07/2020.

    8. "Scarlett O'Hara Sues Mammy's Daughter: Possessive Investments in White Supremacist Aesthetics." LCH Conference Imagining Legal Futurity, Quinnipiac University, School of Law, 03/2020.

    9. "Interracial Family Memoirs: Claiming Kinship across the Color Line." Lecture Series, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Södertörn University, Stockholm, 03/2019.

    10. "Dads, Are We There Yet? Queer Interracial Kinship & Autobiographical Calls for Recognition." Gender Studies Lecture Series, Zentrum für Gender Studies und feministische Zukunftsforschung, Marburg University, 06/2018.

    11. "The Supernatural Meets the Perverse: Tracing Queer Connections from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and beyond." Workshop Frankenstein's Legacy: 200 Years of Myths, Monsters, and Mysteries, Bremen University, 12/2018.

    12.  "Coming Out as Family: Queer Interracial Kinship and the Closet(s) of Multiracialism." Black Bag Speaker Series, Portland State University, 11/2017.

    13. "Amerikanistische Perspektiven auf rassismuskritische Pädagogik." Conference Ohne Angst Verschieden Sein, Jugendbildungstätte Unterfranken, 11/2016.

    14. Miscege-Nation as a Family Secret: American Memoir and Interracial Kinship at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century." W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures, HU Berlin, 01/2015.

    15. "'A House Divided'? Interracial Genealogies in Contemporary American Life Writing." Workshop American Civilization, Harvard University, 10/2011.