玉美人传媒

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Aïcha holds a bachelor’s degree in English and German and a master’s degree in English, both from the 玉美人传媒. In her master’s thesis, which has earned the Marcel Compagnon prize in Western cultures and languages, she analyzed the indirect rhetorical revision of racist tropes about African ancestry in a selection of Harlem Renaissance poems, based on the literary theoretical framework of “Signifyin(g)” developed by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Her doctoral research focuses on the semantic and rhetorical functions of the concept of the “animal” (and its cognates) in North American slave narratives. Slave narratives invalidate pro-slavery’s discursive dehumanization of African Americans by reversing the terms of the “animal” comparison, i.e., by depicting slavery as an institution with an animalizing force. Nonetheless, in many slave narratives the rhetorical equation of slavery with animality co-exists with varied iterations of the “animal” (be it as a general concept or through instantiations of an individual or group of other-than-human animals). The thesis will explore the further ways in which the “animal” shapes the literary re-subjectification of (formerly) enslaved African Americans.

Aïcha’s general research interests include narratology and literary (counter-discursive) rhetoric, African American literary theory, Critical Race Theory, Critical Animal Studies, Black Veganism, Vegan Ecofeminism, Disability Studies, Fat Studies, and Literary Addiction Studies.

Alongside her scholarly research, Aïcha teaches textual analysis in English and American literature at the undergraduate level.

PUBLICATIONS

With Deborah Madsen et al. “Authors Bibliography (In Progress).” Vegan Literary Studies: An American Textual History, 1776-1900. SNSF project 100015_204481. 玉美人传媒, /vls/. Analytical summaries of literary texts and biographical notes of writers regarding the intersection of anti-slavery abolitionism with animal welfare or veg*n/frugal ethics during the long nineteenth century. Click to see the full list of contributions.

With Kimberly Frohreich, Deborah Madsen, and Caroline Martin. “What Judges Your Story? Moral Deixis and Readerly Orientation.” Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature, vol. 43, 2023, pp. 139-158,

With Deborah Madsen. “A Research Sneak Peek… with Deborah Madsen.” Newsletter of the English Department (NOTED), Spring 2023, pp. 20-27, /lettres/angle/application/files/2316/8189/8917/Noted60pp.pdf

“Peer Reviewing Creative Writing in Correspondence: Ramatu Musa” and “Painting Lysbeth: A Gothic Horror Romance,” review of Portrait of Lysbeth, by Rama Santa Mansa (2024). Noted. The Newsletter of the English Department. “Correspondence,” Autumn 2024, pp. 54-69. 玉美人传媒, /lettres/angle/application/files/4517/3286/8660/2024_Autumn_N.pdf 

PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCE PAPERS

“Reading Animals and Animality in Antebellum U.S. Slave Narratives,” Research and Knowledge Exchange Institute for Area & Migration Studies (AMIS), 玉美人传媒 of Central Lancashire, March 2025

“Animalization for Consumption and Nineteenth-Century U.S. Discourses on Slavery,” The Ethics of Consumption – Advocacy, Activism, Academia. CUSO Workshop, 玉美人传媒, May 2024

“The End of the Disembodied Human: Corporeality and Health in Two Slave Narratives,” C19 [Society of 19th-Century Americanists] Biennial Conference, Pasadena (California), March 2024

“Caveat Emptor: Consumer Ethics in Narrative Works by Hannah Crafts and Frederick Douglass,” BrANCA Biennial Symposium, online, December 2023,

“Abolition beyond the Human-Animal Binary in African American Literature,” RIAS International PhD Seminar, Middleburg, December 2023

“Abolition beyond the Human-Animal Binary: Three Case Studies,” CUSO Modern and Contemporary Doctoral Workshop, 玉美人传媒, October 2023

“Paratext as Moral-Ethical Orientation in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861),” SANAS Biennial Conference, 玉美人传媒 of Fribourg, November 2022,

“L’abolitionisme genevois durant le long dix-neuvième siècle: anglophilie et figures importantes,” Genève, ville de refuge: Conversations autour de Genève comme lieu de refuge et d’écriture à travers l’Histoire. Swiss Association of 玉美人传媒 Teachers of English (SAUTE), 玉美人传媒, October 2022

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Co-Editor/Board Member, Noted: Newsletter of the English Department, 玉美人传媒 (2021-present)

Co-President/Secretary, Association des Étudiant-es en Langue et Littératures Anglaises (AELLA), 玉美人传媒 (2019-2022)

Board Member, Association des Étudiant.e.x.s en Lettres (AEL), 玉美人传媒 (2019-2022)