Makedah Hughes
Makedah Hughes is a Ph.D. student in French and African American Studies at Yale University and a Dean’s Emerging Scholar at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Makedah received bachelor’s degrees in Comparative Literature, with a focus in literary translation, and French & Francophone Studies from Brown University. She was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow.
She went on to live in France for four years, completing a Master Lettres at Université Paris VIII Vincennes - Saint-Denis. During her time abroad, Makedah worked as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, an English-French translator, and an English instructor at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Makedah is particularly interested in Black Francophone and Anglophone historical and speculative fiction, archival silence surrounding the histories of the Trans-Saharan and Inter-African slave trades, and pre-Atlantic formations of the African Diaspora.
20th and 21st Century African Francophone and Anglophone Literature; Pre-Atlantic Slavery; African Diaspora Studies; Archival Studies; Global Black Studies; Literary Translation
Degrees:
M.A., French & Francophone Literature (with High Honors), Université Paris VIII Vincennes - Saint-Denis, 2022
B.A., Comparative Literature (with Honors), B.A., French and Francophone Studies, Brown University, 2019
Department:
Combined Ph.D. with the Department of French and African American Studies