Distinguished Visiting Professorship 2022

Dr. Natasha A. Kelly is author and editor of six books, a curator and visual artist. Her art installations were shown at diverse museums throughout Germany, including the German Historical Museum in Berlin. She made her film debut at the 10th Berlin Biennale in 2018 with her award-winning and internationally traveled documentary “Millis Awakening”. A film monography, film installations and screenings in the USA, Brazil, Australia, India and Europe followed, as well as a filmythology produced for the Maxim-Gorki-Theater Berlin in 2019. In Brazil she celebrated her theater debut with the adaption of her dissertation “Afrokultur” at the Goethe Theatre in 2019. The show was later put on stage in the USA (2020).

Based on her edited volume “Sisters & Souls” (2015), she founded and directed the empowerment theater “M(a)y Sister” in memory of the Afro-German poet May Ayim. Every year the show articulates Black German realities and has been staged at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater in Berlin since 2016. The second edition “Sisters and Souls 2” was published for May Ayims 25th death anniversary in the summer of 2021. With the reader “The Comet – Afrofuturism 2.0” (2020) that resulted from the symposium of the same name in 2018, she moved away from historical representations of Black Germany towards visions of future.

Dr. Kelly has taught at universities in Germany, Austria and the USA and presently holds her second appointment as Max Kade Visiting Professor for German Studies. Her book, “Racism. Structural problems need structural solutions” (April 2021) is a response to the Black Lives Matter Summer 2020 and builds the foundation of her class of 2022 at the University of Tübingen.

Education
PhD & M.A. in Communication Studies and Sociology from the University of Münster, Germany