2018. PhD Romance Languages and Literatures. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA
2008. BA (magna cum laude) Romance Languages. Carleton College, Northfield, USA

Abigail E. Celis is an assistant professor in decolonial Art History and Museum Studies at the Université de Montréal. Informed by feminist and diaspora studies, her research focuses on the artistic and literary production of Afro-descendants and postcolonial migrants in France, as well as the politics of cultural institutions such as museums and arts festivals. Her current project, Between Reprisal and Refusal: Looking Unsettled in Black French and Francophone African Arts and Literature, examines the questions of being, belonging, and embodiment staged in Francophone African and Afro-diasporic artistic and literary production. Her published work appears in African Arts, French Studies; The Journal of French Politics, Culture, and Society; TTR : Traduction, Terminologie, et Rédaction; Association of the Arts of the Present Journal; Palimpsest : A Journal of Gender and the Black International and other venues. Her scholarly contributions include curatorial work and creative collaborations with practicing artists, notably in The Catalogue of Speculative Translations. Dr. Celis was the Marian Trygve Freed Early Career Professor in French and Francophone Studies and Assistant Professor in African Studies at Penn State University from 2019-2021. She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, and the Lurcy Foundation for her research. She has received several research awards, including the 11th Annual Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Awardfor the best conference paper submitted by a junior scholar in the field of contemporary French and Francophone civilization and cultural studies and the 2024 FRQSC Louise-Dandurand Prix de publication for outstanding French-language publication by a Quebec-based scholar. 

2024. Priscilla Drouin. Sites, Sounds & Fragile Ecosystems: Exploring Sound Art’s Social Impacts in the Indian Context

2024. Morgane Guichard. L'aliénation : la destruction d'un tabou

2023. Clémence Foisy-Marquis. Une oeuvre vivante — Mutations des collections et des expositions avec le format de l’installation. Recherche, interprétation et dialogue sur Like ships in the night (2018) de Caroline Monnet

2023. Camille Lauret Gallo-Fontaine. L’Afromusée de Montréal : Revitalisation et valorisation de la communauté afro-descendante

Livres

• Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literatures, Volume 4: 1771-1919. Eds. F. Ekotto et A. Celis. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.
  2021 PROSE Award Finalist: Single and Multivolume Reference, & Textbooks in the Humanities

Articles

• “Mapping the Earth’s Embrace : Queer Belonging in Mame Diarra Niang’s Éthérée” African Arts 57.1 (28-41). https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00741
• « Répéter le futur: Histoires potentielles et résistance dans Liberty: A Universal Chronology of Black Protest (2016) d’Omar Victor Diop ». Contemporary French Civilization. 48.2 (2023) 83-113. https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2023.6 (version libre accès ici)
• "Refusing the 'Gift' of Integration: Narratives of Migration at the Galerie des dons." French Politics, Culture and Society. 40.1 (2022) 1-25. https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2022.400101
• "Marking Whiteness, Unmarking Blackness: Listening and Looking in Alice Diop's Vers la tendresse and Amandine Gay's Ouvrir la voix." French Studies 76.2 (2022) 417-435. https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knac124
• “Literacies of the Flesh in the Future Tense: Chris Abani’s Becoming Abigail.” Palimpsest: Journal of Women, Gender, and the Black International. 10.1 (2021) 83-101. 10.1353/pal.2021.0005
• “Evaluating Cultural Translation at the Musée du Quai Branly.” TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction. 32.1 (2019) 47-80. https://doi.org/10.7202/1068014ar

Chapitres de livres

• “Exiles, Migrations, Diasporas.” Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature Volume 5. Eds. Venkat B. Mani et Ken Seigeurie. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. 2020 (2743-53).
• Avec F. Ekotto. “The Colonial Encounter.” Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature Volume 4. Eds. F. Ekotto et A. Celis. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. 2020 (1955-65).
• Avec F. Ekotto. “Introduction.” Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature Volume 4. Eds. Frieda Ekotto et Abigail E. Celis. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell (1939-55).

Autres publications (sélection)

• “Interview: Djuneid Dulloo and Alexis Peskine.” ASAP/Journal. 7.1 (2022). 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1353/asa.2022.0000
• “Review: Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question by Bénédicte Boisseron. Comparative Literature Studies. 58.2 (2021) E15-E19. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794585
• “Art World City: The Creative Economy of Artists and Urban Life in Dakar by Joanna Grabski (Review).” African Studies Review. 62.3 (2019) E42-E44. doi:10.1017/asr.2019.11.
• “Scholarly Review Essay: Speak Out/Make their Way and Vibrancy of Silence.“ Africa Studies Review. 61.2 (2019) 237-241. doi:10.1017/asr.2018.21
• “The City in The Blue Daylight, Dak’Art 2016: (Review).” African Arts. 50.1 (2017) 86-90. MIT Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/648542
• And Endlessly, I Create Myself: William-Adjété Wilson and The Black Ocean (catalogue d’exposition). Eds F. Ekotto et A. Celis. Ann Arbor: GalleryDAAS Press, 2014.