Montia Breanne Daniels

Montia Daniels (she/they) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is a McNair Graduate Fellow, who has received fellowships and grants from the Southern Equality Research Center, Black Communications and Technology Lab, and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Her most recent publication is in Southern Cultures entitled “God Loves Women, and I Do Too: The Spiritual Communities of Southern Black Queer Women and Nonbinary Folks” (2025). 

Their dissertation research is interested in Southern Black queer women, girls, and nonbinary (SBQWGNB)  folks’ daughtering experiences in sites that are imagined to be impossible for Black queer living, specifically home. Their research specifically focuses on North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Her work engages with Black feminist geographies, Black queer studies, and religious studies, as well oral history, autoethnography, poetic inquiry. She has presented her work at the American Studies Association, National Women’s Studies Association, WGS-South, Oral History Association, and more. She has a forthcoming poetry and sculptural project with the Black Homeplaces Project on Black queer girlhood, mother-daughter relationships, and recipes. 

Prior to Montia’s graduate studies, she received her B.A. in Media and Journalism with highest honors from the  Hussman School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also holds a B.A. in Women's Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill. Her undergraduate thesis is entitled “Zines are Freedom”: Power, Resistance, and Representation in Black Queer Women and Non-binary Folks’ Zines.”