Montia Breanne Daniels

Montia Daniels (she/they) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has been awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship Award from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for the 2026-2027 academic year to support her ongoing dissertation project titled, "Daughtering Queerly: The Body, Religion, and Spirituality for Black Queer Women, Girls, and Nonbinary Folks in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia." She is also 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 Gender, Women, and Families of Color entitled “Divine Sight in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust and Praise House: A Black Feminist Ekphrastic Approach” (2026). She also has published an article 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 is also the 2026-2027 secretary of WGS- South. 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.”