Rahiela Seef

Rahiela is a PhD researcher working within the Postcolonial Studies Centre of Nottingham Trent University. She has a keen interest in Black feminist and intersectional poetry, first established from her time in undergraduate, and currently writes as part of a small-scale literary collective. After completing her BA in English Literature, she received postgraduate funding through the Dr Pauline Polkey Scholarship, allowing her to continue her exploration of intersectional literature and contemporary Black poetry. As a result of this work, she was awarded the MRes English Literary Research Prize.

She was awarded a Stuart Hall PhD Scholarship in 2023, in collaboration with the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Her PhD thesis, entitled “‘Like Surah, Like Song’: The Poetics of Faith, Femininity and Orality across the East African Diaspora”, is a continuation of her undergraduate and postgraduate research focus. The project will analyse representations of faith, Black womanhood and female defiance in Diaspora Sudanese and Somali poetry, drawing thematic connections to establish a shared literary canon, and exploring how these poets merge African, Islamic and Contemporary Black oral traditions to create a uniquely diasporic voice.