Rafaella Taylor-Seymour Named Charlotte W. Newcome Doctoral Dissertation Fellow

Raffaella Taylor-Seymour, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Anthropology & Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, has been named a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation).

Raffaella’s dissertation, "Intimate Rites: Localizing Queerness through Ancestral Spiritualities in Contemporary Zimbabwe", investigates how young people in Zimbabwe are developing new expressions of queerness through the reinvention of spiritual practices involving ancestors.

The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values.