Cedric Essi is a post-doctoral scholar at the Collaborative Research Center “Law and Literature” (WWU Münster) and the Department of English and American Studies at Osnabrück University. Essi graduated from JMU Würzburg with an M.A. in American Studies and a Staatsexamen (teaching degree) in English and French. He received his PhD in American Studies from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and also taught at the University of Bremen. In his dissertation, he examined how Americans deployed autobiographical practices to translate the 1967 legalization of interracial kinship into cultural legitimacy at the turn of the twenty-first century. Essi’s research focuses on critical race theory, cultural legal studies, life writing, kinship studies as well as queer studies, and was supported by research fellowships at Harvard University, Yale University, and UC Berkeley. He is an associate editor of the quarterly Amerikastudien / American Studies.