Sabeen Ahmed

Sabeen Ahmed (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar, cultural theorist, and visual artist whose work bridges social and political philosophy, critical aesthetics, and anticolonial thought and praxis. She specializes in the philosophy of race, critical colonial studies, Marx, Foucault, and twentieth-century Continental Philosophy, with particular interests in Critical Theory, existential phenomenology, and aesthetics and affect studies. Her current research examines the enduring coloniality of modern law, regimes of racial legibility, and the metaphysics of fascism. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University and has held academic appointments at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Colorado College, and Swarthmore College.

Sabeen is a frequent invited scholar at the Ouray International Film Festival, where she has served as inaugural Scholar-in-Residence (2021), member of the Festival Jury (2025), and Facilitator for the inaugural Ouray Film Sabbatical (2026). Her work has appeared in Philosophy Today, Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology, and Theory & Event, among other venues, and she has contributed chapters to numerous edited volumes at the forefront of decolonial theory, critical race theory, and Foucault scholarship. She is the co-editor of Refugees Now: Rethinking Borders, Hospitality, and Citizenship (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).