Raffaella Taylor-Seymour

Raffaella Taylor-Seymour is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Her scholarship integrates ethnographic and archival methods to interrogate the entanglements of religion, colonialism, gender, sexuality, and environmental knowledge in Zimbabwe.

Education:

• Ph.D. (Anthropology & Comparative Human Development), University of Chicago, 2022
• M.A. (Comparative Human Development), University of Chicago, 2017
• B.A. (Archaeology & Anthropology), King’s College, University of Cambridge, 2014

Research Focus:

Her first book project, Ancestral Intimacies: Queerness, Relationality and Religion in Zimbabwe, is an ethnography of queer Zimbabweans’ spiritual lives, exploring how young queer people reconfigure African and Christian archives to craft new kinship and religiosity. A second project investigates rainmaking rites amid Southern African water scarcity, examining how Indigenous epistemologies shape responses to climate catastrophe and spark new metaphysical debates.

Scientific Awards:

• Lichtstern Prize for the Best Dissertation in Anthropology
• Association for Feminist Anthropology Dissertation Award
• Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

Advising & Mentoring:

While no specific advisees are named in the provided materials, she explicitly welcomes collaborative partnerships with scholars and researchers in Zimbabwe and encourages contact from interested parties.

Previous Appointments:

• Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, Columbia University (2023–2025)
• Junior Research Fellow, Pembroke College, University of Oxford (2022–2023)