Lacy Noel Feigh

Middle East Center Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Lacy Feigh is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center. She completed her dissertation, entitled “Abyssinia to Ethiopia: Slavery, Race, and the Transition from Empire to Nation, 1855-1957” in Penn’s History Department in 2022. Her dissertation examines histories of enslavement and the legacies of racial and ethnic hierarchies built and sustained by the modern Ethiopian imperial state. More broadly, her work looks beyond the borders of the highland empire, to show how national identity is shaped both in Ethiopia and across diasporas, including those in Egypt, Italy, and the United States. Through her work, Feigh is committed to re-connecting Middle East and African Studies by examining the lives of those who lived outside of and between the borders of traditional area studies. Her research has been funded by SSRC’s IDRF and Fulbright grants to Ethiopia and Jordan. At Penn, Feigh has taught Rastafari to Haile Selassie: A Global History of Modern Ethiopia. Prior to beginning her graduate work, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Yirgalem, Ethiopia. You can check out a piece she wrote on Peace Corps in the Washington Post’s “Made by History” column, here.

Education

Ph.D., History, University of Pennsylvania (2022)

M.A., History, University of Pennsylvania (2017)

B.A., History and Political Science, Presbyterian College (2012)