Graduate Associate, The Philadelphia Trans Oral History Project/The LGBT Center

Email

mridgell@sas.upenn.edu

Office Location

BENN 345

Marc Ridgell (they/them) is a William Fontaine Fellow and PhD Student in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Marc welcomes all prospective student inquiries, especially from students of color and first-generation/low-income students.

Marc graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis in 2023 with their A.B. in African and African American Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. At WashU, they were a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and Point Foundation Scholar, as well as completed research fellowships through the Leadership Alliance and Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute.

They are interested in how Black LGBTQ+ communities within U.S. cities experience life and organize against systemic violence and urban inequality. Marc is also interested in using ethnographic methods, as well as theories in visual culture and performance studies, to depict urban Black queer and trans life.

Marc is currently a Graduate Associate for the Philadelphia Trans Oral History Project at the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies, as well as the LGBT Center, at the University of Pennsylvania.

Area of Expertise

field/interests

Cultural Studies and Cultural History LGBTQ Studies and Queer Theory Social Change and Social Justice