Manar Ellethy is a historian with an interdisciplinary interest and specialization in cultural analysis, cultural studies, film studies, and postcolonial studies focusing specifically on race and cultural resistance in the American context and beyond. Her recent work examines Black engagement with documentary film in the 1960s in the context of the Black radical tradition and cultural resistance. Her work also focuses on Black transnational solidarity with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles in North Africa and the broader MENA region. She is currently Lecturer of Cultural History at the Department of History and Cultural History. Before joining Utrecht University, Manar was affiliated with Leiden University and Radboud University. 

She is currently working on a new project entitled  'Black Meets Brown:’ Radical Solidarity Encounters. The project considers the historical transnational networks of solidarity established between 1965 and the late 1970s between African American activists, artists, and organizers in MENA, primarily, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, and Palestine. 

In 2021 Manar was awarded a fully funded PhD grant from Stichting Praesidium Libertatis. Manar received her PhD from Leiden University and the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies in 2025. Previous awards include a fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library in 2023 and a Rob Kroes Travel Grant from the Netherlands American Studies Association.