Riziki Millanzi

Riziki Millanzi is a Doctoral Tutor in Media and Film at the University of Sussex's School of Media, Arts and Humanities, where she also serves as a Research Associate in the Sussex Centre for American Studies. She completed her PhD at Sussex in 2024 with a dissertation titled Empowerment, Protest and Celebration: The representation of ‘Black Girl Magic’ in Speculative Fiction and Contemporary Culture, building on her MA in English Literature from the same institution.

Her research examines Black speculative fiction and popular culture through intersectional frameworks, with expertise in:

• Black feminist interpretations of comics, film, and literature
• Afrofuturist and Africanfuturist narratives
• Representations of Black womanhood in horror and sci-fi genres
• Digital communities around "Black Girl Magic" movements

Her publications demonstrate consistent focus on decolonizing speculative genres, with recurring analysis of identity formation, resistance tropes, and cultural reclamation in comics (DC/Marvel), films (Snowpiercer), and literature (Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor). Recent work explores pandemic-era narratives and virtual reality's role in Black identity construction.

Award highlights include:

• BAAS Postgraduate Essay Award for Students of Colour (2022)
• Adam Weiler Doctoral Impact Awards Runner-Up (2022)
• SWPACA Graduate Student Award (2021)
• Thomas W. Wilkins Research Fellowship (2022)

As a Doctoral Tutor, she has taught undergraduate courses including Analysing Film and Exploring Film Studies. She maintains professional memberships in the British Association for American Studies and British Science Fiction Association.