Current Research Interests

Director, Project on New African Literatures (PONAL)
African & Black Diasporic literatures in English and French
Postcolonial and cultural theory
Third World feminist discourses
African & Black Diasporic film, Popular Culture, & Music
African Language literature (Yoruba)

Honours

The Erasmus Teaching Award, Penn State University, Spring 2006

Recent Publications:

“Disappearing me Softly: An Open Letter to Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar” The Zeleza Post (www.zeleza.com) October 2007

“Makwerekwere: Black South Africa’s Instant-Mix Kaffirs?” Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org) February 2008.

“Going to Meet Black America” Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.com) March 2008

“Memo To Gloria Steinem: How Many Cojones Make One Testicularly Fortified Woman?” The Zeleza Post (www.zeleza.com) May 2008.

Pius Adesanmi and Chris Dunton (eds) “New Nigerian Writing” Special Issue of English in Africa 32.1 (May 2005)

“Third Generation African Literatures and Contemporary Theorizing.” The Study of Africa. Vol. 1: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Encounters. Ed. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. Dakar: CORDESRIA Book Series, 2006. 105-116.

“Re-Membering the Present, Prophesying the Past: Colonialism, Ecriture Engagée, and Africa’s New Intellectuals”. The Dark Webs: Perspectives on Colonialism in Africa. Ed. Toyin Falola, Carolina Academic Press: Durham, NC, 2005. 269-286.

“Dear President Sarkozy…” The Zeleza Post (www.zeleza.com) May 2007.

“Cats, Catritude, and the Limits of Contingency: Africa in North American Critical Theory.” The Zeleza Post (www.zeleza.com) April 2007.

“Esiaba Irobi’s The Battle of Harlem: Pre-Notes and Footnotes.” Sentinel Poetry Online 52 April, 2007. (www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk)

Work in press or accepted for publication:

*“Things Fall Apart, the American Classroom, and the Question of Freedom”. Forthcoming in New Perspectives on Chinua Achebe. Ed. Onookome Okome, Africa World Press.

*“The Subaltern Can Bite: African Women’s Writing, the Social, and Transformation in the Postcolony”. Solicited essay for a special issue of Canadian Review of Comparative Literature.

“Reshaping Power and the Public Space: The Political Voices of African Writers”. Solicited book chapter.

“The African Writer and the Question of Leadership”. Solicited journal article.

Papers Presented:

African Literature Association (ALA), Macomb, Illinois, April 22 – 27, 2008. Paper Presented: “Revisiting the District Commissioner in Francophone African Fiction”

African Literature Association (ALA), Macomb, Illinois, April 22 – 27, 2008. Paper Presented: “Gaps and Dents: African Literature and the Problem of Anthologies”

African Literature Association (ALA), Macomb, Illinois, April 22 – 27, 2008. Paper Presented: “Third Generation Nigerian Writing: Critical Trajectories”

“The Africa of Presence Africaine”, lecture presented to the Black Paris seminar, The Pennsylvania State University, March 2007.

“Two Africas, Canonization, and the Immediate Future of African Literary Studies: Random Reflections.” Presented at the Africa 2020 syposium, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 2007.

“Postcolonial Difference and Criminalized Mobilities: Preliminary Reflections”, lecture presented at the Southern African Research Centre, Queen’s University, October 2006.

“Postcolonial Difference and Criminalized Mobilities: Preliminary Reflections”, lecture presented as Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, The Pennsylvania State University, November 2006.

“Two Africas and the Diasporic Imagination”, keynote lecture delivered at the launch of the African Studies Minor, The University of British Columbia, December 2006.