Research

My research focuses on the relations between African literatures and the material world. I am primarily interested in how literary forms have been used by writers from across the continent and the diaspora to imagine alternative political, social and cultural ways of being. Although my primary research focuses on the post-1980s period of Africa literatures, I have also published on earlier works by Frantz Fanon and on the novels of Salman Rushdie and Jamaica Kincaid. Although close reading is an essential part of my critical practice, I also consider fieldwork to be essential component of my work and have, in recent years, made visits to Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya in support of my dissertation project. I understand Anglophone and Postcolonial Studies to be two of my primary fields, but am nevertheless a card-carrying comparatist who also studies texts written in French and Kiswahili. The interdisciplinary nature of my work and training means that I also contribute to the broader field of African Studies. See my publications page for a list of my research outputs.