About

Academic. Speaker. Author.

Popular speaker and award winning writer Dr Zélie Asava is the author of two books and the driving force behind a series of projects focused on questions of race, gender and visual culture in Ireland, France, Senegal, Scandinavia, Burkina Faso, Britain and the US.

The Black Irish Onscreen: Representing Black and Mixed-Race Identities in Irish Film and Television, is the first major study of black and mixed-race themes in Irish Screen Studies. Her second book Mixed-Race Cinemas: Multiracial Dynamics in America and France, published in 2017 and re-released on paperback in 2019, charts race relations onscreen from the birth of cinema to the present day on both sides of the Atlantic. Recent publications include: ‘Approaching Race and Ethnicity in Nordic Film Culture’, a 2022 special issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema (co-edited with Dr Kate Moffat), which makes critical new contributions to the field, and the chapter ‘Intersectionality in Contemporary Melodrama: Normal People and Kissing Candice’ in Austerity and Irish Women’s Writing and Culture, 1980–2020.

To mark the tenth anniversary of The Black Irish Onscreen Zélie has undertaken a series of talks and events, including conference keynotes at the University of Limerick for the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, the University of Lille for the French Society for Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast for the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies, Boston College for the American Conference for Irish Studies, the University of Galway for the NUIG Irish Studies/Canadian Association of Irish Studies, and guest lectures at the University of Zurich for The Swiss Centre of Irish Studies @ the Zurich James Joyce Foundation and Atlantic Technological University. She is currently writing chapters for the books Innovations in Black European Studies, Black Image Makers and Whiteness, Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland, Black and White On Screen, Problematising Temporalities in Irish Studies, Mediaocracy, Irish Studies Reflections on Slow Violence, and the Routledge Companion to Sally Rooney.

In 2004, Zélie designed the first Irish university module to explore race and film through an intersectional lens. She has devised modules on Film, Theatre, Television, Literature and Digital Cultures for University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dun Laoghaire, and Dundalk Institute of Technology, where she ran degrees in Video and Film Production and Communications in Creative Multimedia. She is a member of the European Commission’s Capital of Culture expert panel and the Irish government’s Advisory Committee on the Representation of Women and Women’s Stories within the context of the National Cultural Institutions and National Collections.

In addition to appointments as a film classifier, consultant, public speaker, script editor, writer and editorial advisor, Zélie sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland (co-chairing the GED committee), French Screen Studies, Irish Film Institute, Catalyst International Film Festival and the digital arts magazine Unapologetic. Over the past number of years, she has worked on several Irish film and television productions as well as with various arts agencies including Belfast Film Festival, Arts Council Ireland, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Abbey Theatre, Coimisiún na Meán, Irish Film and Television Academy, Dublin International Film Festival, IFI French Film Festival, London Irish Film Festival, Creative Desk Europe-Ireland, Royal Hibernian Academy, African film platform Akoroko, and Irish industry development programme X-Pollinator.

A former actress, MP’s casework manager and Diversity and Inclusion Consultant, Zélie enjoys addressing sociological and cultural intersections on public platforms just as much as in the lecture hall. She has made numerous media appearances in her capacity as an expert on racial representations onscreen. Zélie holds an MA in Gender and Media Studies from the University of Sussex, a 1st class BA in English and Philosophy from University College Dublin and a PhD, also from UCD.

MEDIA

Zélie has appeared as a contributor on RTÉ One News, RTÉ Radio One, RTÉ Lyric FM, RTÉ 2FM, Al Araby TV, and Newstalk.

In 2023, she appeared as an interviewer on the photojournalism documentary I Dream in Photos: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29333272/

…and as a contributor on African and disaporic cinema for The Black Studies Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cinemas-of-the-black-diaspora/id1642954832?i=1000625527548

In 2022, she chaired a Catalyst International Film Festival panel on the opportunities and challenges facing ethnic minority Irish creatives: https://wft.ie/catalyst-international-film-festival-panel-podcast-voices-from-the-edge/

In 2021, she chaired a talk with Dr Sara Ahmed for the Irish Museum of Modern Art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmwZdHy23IY

Check out her RTÉ interview on racial representation in Irish screen culture here: https://soundcloud.com/soundsdoable/culture-file-race-and-the

In this RTÉ Culture File episode, she joins a panel debating cancel culture: https://soundcloud.com/soundsdoable/the-culture-file-debate-sept?fbclid=IwAR0vOryCW035sBzmuV8PcI_W_tZ5WdGKuKIC3u_hgELhxhqDz30wjemBSGo

Listen back to her lockdown cultural highlights for RTÉ here: https://soundcloud.com/soundsdoable/culture-file-likes-zelie-asava

Zélie’s 2020 keynote for Spotlight at the Irish Film Institute is available to watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGj7PwWAgVs

Listen to her discussion with film director Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2018 here: https://soundcloud.com/imma-ireland/post-screening-discussion-muttererde

Watch Zélie’s 2014 keynote address to the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University, Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtOVr6gYMTA

Access clips of the media discussed here: https://mixedrootsstories.com/cmrs-mixed-race-irish-film-keynote-links/

Zélie has a diploma from the London School of Journalism. While at University College Dublin she was feature writer and editor of the arts section for The College Tribune, as well as a commentator on arts and politics for The UCD Observer, The Belfield Entertainment Review and The Film Society Magazine. After college, she wrote for The Guardian, The Evening Herald and Time Out among others. Here are a few recent pieces:

Drift: Cynthia Erivo Mindful Melodrama Tackles Divisive Discourse Around Refugee Crisis — Akoroko https://akoroko.com/drift-sundance-cynthia-erivo-chen/

Our Lady of the Chinese Shop: National, Personal and Neocolonial Dreamscapes Collide in Poetic Angolan Tale — Akoroko https://akoroko.com/our-lady-of-the-chinese-shop-review/

Casablanca Beats: Social Commentary and Magical Realism in Moroccan Hip Hop Musical — Akoroko https://akoroko.com/casablanca-beats-review/

The Visceral Afterlives of Trauma in Our Father, The Devil — Akoroko https://akoroko.com/our-father-the-devil-ellie-foumbi/

A Reflection on Dr Sara Ahmed’s lecture, ‘Complaint, Diversity and Other Hostile Environments’ — IMMA Magazine https://imma.ie/magazine/a-reflection-complaint-diversity-and-other-hostile-environments/

100 Voices #AllAgainstRacism — Hot Press Magazine https://www.hotpress.com/culture/100-voices-allagainstracism-dr-zelie-asava-we-need-to-reimagine-our-cultural-landscape-and-tell-stories-that-represent-people-from-every-walk-of-life-22884991

The Truth about Dublin — The Herald Newspaper https://www.herald.ie/lifestyle/the-truth-about-dublin-an-unfair-city-27963389.html

Introducing The Black Irish Onscreen — Film Ireland Magazine http://filmireland.net/2014/01/13/the-black-irish-onscreen-representing-black-and-mixed-race-identities-on-irish-film-and-television/

Cinema and Critical Mixed Race Studies — African Women in Cinema https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/02/zelie-asava-mixed-raced-identities-and.html

Zélie was a founder member of Trinity College Dublin’s and University College Dublin’s Anti-Racism societies, and was responsible for the latter’s PR.

AWARDS

Zélie was awarded UCD’s Patrick Semple medal for academic excellence, following three successive years of achieving the highest 1.1 in her undergraduate studies.

As a postgraduate, she was awarded UCD scholarships, a fellowship, and Peter Lang’s Young Irish Scholar award.

In 2020, Zélie was the recipient of an Arts Council award.