Gabeba Baderoon

Gabeba Baderoon is an Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, African Studies, and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. She holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town (2004) and has authored influential works such as Regarding Muslims: from Slavery to Post-apartheid (2014) and poetry collections like The Dream in the Next Body. Her research focuses on intersections of race, gender, Islam, and colonial history in Southern Africa. Baderoon has held fellowships from institutions including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Nordic Africa Institute. She co-leads projects on gender and Islam, and her current work explores autobiography, religion, and national identity in Public Privacies. Active in academic governance, she serves on committees for intersectionality research and humanities initiatives.

Education:

• PhD in English, University of Cape Town, 2004
• MA, University of Cape Town, 1995
• BA, University of Cape Town, 1989

Research Interests:

Baderoon’s work interrogates the entanglements of colonialism, slavery, and post-apartheid legacies through lenses of gender and Islam. She examines how religious identities intersect with racialized histories in South Africa, particularly focusing on Cape Muslim communities. Her recent scholarship emphasizes transnational feminist solidarities and decolonial methodologies. Key themes include:

• Queer Muslim autobiographies
• Postcolonial print cultures
• Environmental humanities and coastal histories

Recent Publications Trends:

Her 2023-2024 publications reflect a turn toward oceanic studies, exploring Indian Ocean networks and maritime histories. Concurrently, she engages in critical interventions on academic institutional reform and Black feminist pedagogies. Earlier works like Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (2021) blend poetic and scholarly forms to articulate embodied knowledges.

Grants & Awards:

In addition to named fellowships, Baderoon’s work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the South African National Research Foundation. She has curated exhibitions on photographic activism and contributed to public dialogues on race and representation.

Labs/Initiatives:

Co-organizes the transnational Theorizing Gender and Islam project with Sa’diyya Shaikh and Nina Hoel. Member of the Global Approaches to Intersectionality Steering Committee and Weiss Chair of Humanities Advisory Board at Penn State.