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Social Sciences and Humanities; Arts and Literature

Abigail E. Celis

Professeure adjointe

Faculté des arts et des sciences - Département d'histoire de l'art et d'études cinématographiques

Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, room C-1110

abigail.celis@umontreal.ca

Secondary number: 514 343-5714 (Travail 1)

Profile

Biography

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. 

Awards and recognitions

2024: FRQSC Louise-Dandurand Prix de publication en français
2022: 11th Annual Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award
2019-2021: Marian Trygve Freed Early Career Professor in French and Francophone Studies, Penn State University
2018: Camargo Foundation Core Fellows Residency Program
2017: Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

Affiliations and responsabilities

Projects

Research projects

2023 - 2027

Décoloniser l'imaginaire: le corps dans la création artistique contemporaine afro-française

Lead researcher : Abigail E. Celis
Funding sources: FRQSC/Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FQRSC)
Grant programs: PV113813-(NP) Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale
2023 - 2026

L'art Noir: cartographies for an emerging field

Lead researcher : Abigail E. Celis
Funding sources: CRSH/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada
Grant programs: PV153480-Subventions de développement Savoir
2022 - 2024

Savoir décolonial et les artistes afro-descendant·e·s en France

Lead researcher : Abigail E. Celis
Funding sources: CRSH/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada
Grant programs: PVX20020-Subvention institutionnelle du CRSH - Subventions d'exploration

Outreach

Publications and presentations

Publications

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

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.

Disciplines

  • Art History
  • Museology
  • Literary Studies

Areas of expertise

  • Cultural studies
  • Études muséales
  • Institutions culturelles
  • 20th century
  • 21th century
  • Africa
  • France