New Impulses for Bayreuth‘s African Studies

Since 2021, Dr. Serawit B. Debele has been leading the Junior Research Group Sexualities, Political Orders and Revolutions in Africa within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth. At the turn of the year, she will assume the newly established professorship for Gender, Sexuality and Religion with a focus on Africa. Her research explores the complex entanglements of sexuality, religion and politics in African societies, with a particular focus on Tunisia, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Prof. Debele investigates how political upheavals – such as the Arab Spring, the Oromo protests, or the Sudanese revolution – can be understood as “moments of hope” that open up new spaces for marginalised groups, especially sexual minorities. Her work not only addresses current developments but also examines historical continuities and global interconnections of inequality. Her interdisciplinary approach combines historical and ethnographic methods to analyse how religious discourses shape understandings of sexuality. In doing so, she brings both deep expertise and fresh perspectives to African Studies and intersectional debates at the University of Bayreuth.

After completing her MA in Indigenous Cultural Studies at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, she came to the University of Bayreuth in 2011, where she earned her PhD in Religious Studies at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) in 2015. She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bayreuth, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, focusing on the interaction between religion and politics in Ethiopia. This was followed by a research position at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, where she examined the intersections of politics and queer communities in Ethiopia. In 2021, she returned to Bayreuth to lead the Junior Research Group Sexualities, Political Orders and Revolutions in Africa.

“As a BIGSAS alumna, I feel deeply connected to Bayreuth. The university, the researchers on campus, and my friends here have shaped me and contributed to my development in a particular way. Combined with the university’s interdisciplinary profile, its unique focus on African Studies in Germany, and the internationally renowned Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, it was an easy decision for me to return to Bayreuth,” says Debele.