Jessica Nogueira Varela is an Afro-Brazilian doctoral candidate in Comparative Gender Studies at the Central European University. In 2024, Jessica co-organized a one-day international symposium titled “Memory, Resistance and Colonial Hierarchies of Belonging (A)cross the Atlantic,” with Dr. Jana Schmidt at Bard College (NY). The symposium delved into topics of memory-making, trauma, and resistance amid legacies of colonialism, drawing from Jessica's dissertation project.
Recently, Jessica contributed to discussions on German colonialism and the fight for full citizenship among black Germans from 1888 until 1921 through an article published by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Institution in Prague. https://cz.boell.org/en/node/2965 Jessica was also the recipient of the Sedgwick-Miller research fellowship at Cornell University for the 2022/23 academic year.
In 2023, Jessica published a chapter titled "Autobiographical Flesh: Understanding Western Notions of Humanity through the Life and Selected Writings of Una Marson (1905–1965)," part of the edited collection "Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe," an open-access publication by Routledge, edited by Elisabeth L. Engebretsen and Mia Liinason. Additionally, Jessica's previously published chapter titled "On the Shore: Autoethnography and Reflexivity from a Black Feminist and Decolonial Perspective" is part of the edited volume "Investigating Cultures of Equality," edited by Dorota Golańska, Aleksandra M. Różalska, and Suzanne Clisby; published by Routledge in 2022.
Jessica graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 2020, having received a scholarship for GEMMA – Erasmus Mundus + Master’s Degree in Gender and Women’s Studies, from the Central European University (CEU) and the University of Łódź, Poland. She also holds a teaching and bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Ceará in Brazil.
Throughout her academic journey, Jessica has presented her work at various conferences, including the Third “Transforming Identities” Workshop organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Stavanger in 2020, the Decolonised Futures Conference 2021 organized by St. Mary’s University Twickenham London, the RINGS 8th Annual Conference: Decolonising Feminisms at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa in 2022, and the Taking the Mic Conference at the Royal Academy of Speech and Drama in 2022.
Jessica's primary areas of interest include Black Feminism, Decolonial Theory, Critical Race Studies, and Migration Studies.
Currently, Jessica is facilitating a free and open-to-the-public online reading group focusing on black women's poetry titled "Poetry for the Political Imagination." For more information, please visit:
https://linktr.ee/poetryforthepoliticalimag?utm_source=linktree_profile_...