Melon Public Humanities Fellow, UW Center for the Humanities

Unifier Dyer is a certified healer-practitioner (Maine/IzaNgoma) from South Africa. They are a doctoral candidate in the Department of African Cultural Studies at UW- Madison. Their research focuses is on the archetype of the healer in women's African and Diasporic novels and biomythographies. This work examines how the character of the healer negotiates a paradoxical relationship to power as both a marginalized figure and knowledge generator. 

Unifier received her bachelor's degree in African Literature and International Relations in 2011 and master’s degree in African Literature in 2015 from The University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Between 2014 and 2017 they undertook research on the moral philosophy Ubuntu with the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria and co-edited the critical anthology Ubuntu and the Everyday (2019). Acknowledging and consolidating epistemologies and stories by Black women as part of the decolonial project is central to Unifiers work as a scholar and healer. She is excited to be joining a team of women at the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness who dedicate their work to empowering Black women and families towards a journey of health, wellness, and collective joy. 

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