Kemi Adeyemi (she/her)

(Note: please don't email inquiring about our PhD program—just read out website and apply!)

Kemi Adeyemi is Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. Her practice use performance as a site and methodology for theorizing the contours of contemporary black queer life. She wrote Feels Right: Black Queer Women & the Politics of Partying in Chicago (Duke University Press, 2022) and co-edited Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2021) with Kareem Khubchandani and Ramón Rivera-Servera. Her most recent writing has appeared in GLQ, Women & Performance, and in the Routledge Handbook of African American Art History.

Adeyemi's work extends into the realm of contemporary art practice. She works as choreographer Will Rawls’ dramaturge, and has written on and for artists including Tschabalala Self, Jovencio de la Paz, Indira Allegra, Brendan Fernandes, and taisha paggett. She curated Amina Ross’ 2019 solo show at Ditch Projects, and co-curated Unstable Objects in 2017 at the Alice Gallery. As Director of The Black Embodiments Studio, Adeyemi runs an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publication platform dedicated to developing discourse around contemporary black art and artists.