Priscilla Layne

Priscilla Layne is Professor of German and Adjunct Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She serves as Director of the Center for European Studies Education and is a leading scholar in German racial identity studies, Afrofuturism, and cross-cultural empathy.

• BA in Comparative Literature, University of Chicago
• MA in German Studies, University of California at Berkeley (2006)
• PhD in German Studies, University of California at Berkeley (2011)

Her research examines how postwar German culture engages with Blackness as a metaphor for rebellion, the dynamics of Afro-German Afrofuturism, and the tensions between African American cultural hegemony and Black German identity. She critiques racial fetishism in German media and explores speculative fiction as a tool for articulating marginalized experiences.

Layne’s recent publications focus on Afro-German literature’s use of Afrofuturism, postwar cinematic narratives, and intersections of race, gender, and colonialism. Her work spans critical analyses of films, literary texts, and cultural movements from the 1960s to the present.

• Scholarship from the Study Foundation of the Berlin Parliament
• President, American Association of Teachers of German (2021–2023)
• Vice President, American Association of Teachers of German (2020–2021)

Priscilla Layne’s courses include Germany and the Black Diaspora and Hitler and Hollywood. Her forthcoming work continues to interrogate the transformative potential of Afrofuturism in European contexts.