Network

About Us

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  • Prof. Dr. Rose Marie Beck

    University of Leipzig,
    Germany

    Professor of Afrikanistik (Languages and Literatures)

  • About:

    Prof. Dr. Rose Marie Beck is a linguistic anthropologist with interests in postcolonial linguistics and the sociology of linguistics. Her research interests have progressed from interaction and conversation analysis to ethnomethodology, praxeology and Science and Technology Studies. She has published about “speaking objects” and media in popular culture, HIV/AIDS prevention in Eastern Africa, on urban languages, language and development, and language philosophy. In 2010 she received an award for an article on HIV-prevention (Beck 2009, 2016) by the KfW for practically relevant development research, a study at the intersection of the sociology of knowledge production, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Regionally she focuses on Eastern Africa and Swahili, Herero (Namibia), but with some interests in Central and Southern Africa. Empirically she works in the fields of Swahili Studies, urban studies, medical anthropology, science and technology studies. She is principal investigator in the project „Recalibrating Afrikanistik”, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation 2019-2026 (2027), and “Doing the City” (DFG, 2017-2020).

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    rmbeck@uni-leipzig.de
    +49 (0)341 - 97 37031

    office: 2.2.05 (house 2, 2nd floor, room 05)

    consultation hour:
    We. 9:00-11:00 pm
    and upon appointment


  • Prof. Dr. Clarissa Vierke

    University of Bayreuth,
    Germany

    Professor of Literatures in African Languages

  • About:

    Clarissa Vierke, born in 1979, has been professor of Literatures in African Languages at the University of Bayreuth since 2014. With a scholarship of the German National Merit Foundation, she studied African Languages, Anthropology and Literatures in African Languages at the University of Bayreuth and the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. She wrote her PhD about the specific poetics of a narrative peotic genre from the Swahili Coast in Eastern Africa. Since then, she has worked on manuscript cultures in Eastern Africa and travelling texts along the East African Coast from Kenya to Mozambique and across the Indian Ocean. She has also expanded her interest in Aesthetics to focus on other poetic genres.

    In 2012, she won the Wissenschaftspreis of the University of Bayreuth and the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz-prize of the German Research Council (DFG).

    Contact:

    clarissa.vierke@uni-bayreuth.de
    +49 (0)921 / 55-3550

    University of Bayreuth
    Literatures in African languages
    95440 Bayreuth
    Room: Room: 1.10 (GW I)
    Fax: +49 (0)921 / 55-3641​


  • Prof. Judith Adaku Mgbemena

    Federal University of Wukari, Nigeria

    Professor of Sociolinguistics and English Studies

  • About:

    My research interests include English language studies and sociolinguistics. I have conducted studies on Nigerian English with focus on the social and cultural influences on the development of English in the Nigerian situation and linguistic features of Nigerian English at various levels – phonological, lexical as well as pragmatics. The focus of my studies on sociolinguistics includes the multifarious sociocultural factors that influence variations and creativity in language use; the pragmatics and semiotics of language use in different linguistic contexts; language and conflict as well as the repertoires and linguistic practices of diverse groups especially in North East Nigeria.
    My research work also involves a project on the development of Jukun language. The project includes the documentation of different aspects of Jukun language and culture. One outcome of the project is the development of curriculum for the teaching of Jukun language in basic education in Nigeria. The curriculum has been approved by the government and put to use in primary schools in the community. The Jukun language development project group is currently working on the development of textbooks and primers to facilitate literacy skills in early grade classes.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    +234 8036649795

    Federal University Wukari
    200 Katsina Ala Road
    Wukari
    Taraba State, Nigeria


  • Dr. Samuel Ndogo

    Moi University,
    Kenya

    Senior Lecturer, African Literature, Theatre & Performing Arts

  • About:

    Samuel Ndogo is an alumnus of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he graduated with a PhD in African Literature. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Literature, Linguistics, Foreign Languages and Film Studies, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya. He is also the local partner of the RecAf Project at Moi University. His research interests include literatures in African languages, translation, literary theory, arts and aesthetics, history of education and higher learning in Africa, popular and cultural studies, autobiographical writings, social media and communication, diaspora and postcolonial studies. Ndogo has published several journal articles and book chapters on these areas. He is a founding member and project partner of the Kenyan Chapter of the African Bayreuth International Alumni Network (afriBIAN) as well as a member of several professional associations, including, the Kenya Oral Literature Association (KOLA); the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA); the African Literature Association (ALA); the Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland e.V. (VAD) (Association for African Studies in Germany); the BIGSAS Alumni Network. He is a recipient of several fellowships and academic exchange programs.

    Administratively, he is a seasoned administrator having taken up various consultancy, mentorship, management and leadership positions within the university and beyond including heading the Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Moi University Kenya.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    samndogo@yahoo.com
    +254 722 736 620

    Department of Literature, Linguistics, Foreign Languages & Film Studies,
    School of Arts & Social Sciences
    Moi University
    P.O. Box 3900-30100
    ELDORET, KENYA


  • Dr. Simthembile Xeketwana

    Univerity of Stellenbosch,
    South Africa

    Lecturer in Language education

  • About:

    Simthembile Xeketwana is a lecturer in the Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His research interest is within the language and education, in particular genre-based pedagogy in schools. He emphases on teaching different genres as per the CAPS specifications. He is also interested in the use of language as a meaning making tool, in the South African diverse classrooms. Furthermore, Simthembile is interested in the use of language in education by learners and teachers to ensure that the linguistic repertories. A secondary interest is within literature and literary analysis and how literature should be maintained to make African languages visible.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    asx@sun.ac.za
    +27685394783

    Faculty of Education, Curriculum Studies
    Room 2002
    GG Cilliers Building, c/o Ryneveld and Crozier Street, Stellenbosch
    Tel: 0218083935

    Consultation hours:
    09h00 - 14h30


  • Prof. Flavia Aiello

    University of Naples "L´Orientale",
    Italy

    Associate Professor of Swahili Language and Literature

  • About:

    After a degree in modern foreign languages and literatures (German, English and French), Flavia Aiello studied African languages and literatures at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, specialising in Swahili, where she also obtained a PhD with research on taarab sung poetry in Zanzibar. She taught Swahili language and literature at the University of Calabria for several years and then moved to “L’Orientale”, where she is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies. Her main interests are contemporary oral and written Swahili literature (including children’s literature) and translation (history, theory and practice). She has recently coordinated a research unit on Congolese Swahili varieties and their literary and artistic expressions, as part of a Project of Relevant National Interest funded by the Italian Ministry for Universities for the period 2017-2020. She has also worked on terminology and lexicography and is currently coordinating a project for the creation of an online Swahili-Italian dictionary. She is presently a member of the Executive Board of ASAI (Association for African Studies in Italy), the main association of Italian Africanists. She is the author of numerous publications in national and international journals and volumes, as well as some translations of modern Swahili literature, both prose and poetry.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    faiello@unior.it

    Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo,
    Palazzo Corigliano, Piazza San Domenico Maggiore,
    80134, Napoli, Italy


  • Dr. Martin Orwin

    University of Naples "L´Orientale",
    Italy

    Associate Professor of Somali Language and Literature

  • About:

    Martin Orwin studied Arabic and Amharic at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London before turning to Somali and completing a PhD on the phonology of that language. Since the early 1990s he worked at SOAS teaching and researching Somali language and literature before moving to the University of Naples "L'Orientale" in 2020. His research focusses on language use in Somali poetry with a particular interest in metre and how Somali poetry reflects ideas of 'lyric' poetry as expressed in some of the wider literature on that subject. Another research interest is music on which he has written a little both theoretically and with regard to Somali poetry performance specifically. He is currently writing up ideas on the modes of performance of Somali poetry. He is a keen literary translator of Somali poetry into English and has published translations in a number of outlets and has written a little on that process.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website
    morwin@unior.it

    Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo,
    Palazzo Corigliano, Piazza San Domenico Maggiore,
    80134, Napoli, Italy


  • Brady Blackburn

    University of Bayreuth,
    Germany

    Research Associate

  • About:

    Brady Blackburn is a research associate of literatures in African languages as part of the research project Recalibrating Afrikanistik. He studied English Literature during his undergraduate in Denver, USA, during which time he did a semester abroad at the University of Ghana, Legon before obtaining his MA in African Verbal and Visual Arts at the University of Bayreuth. He is currently pursuing his PhD, for which he is researching the publication of periodicals in African languages. His main research interests are the production and consumption of African-language literature with a particular focus on West African languages. He’s also fascinated by sociolinguistics, language ideologies, reading cultures, and LINGOs. In the background, he runs the NGO Untold International, which provides language arts resources and education in rural Ghana.

    Contact:

    Weblink Visit Website

  • Kaitlyn Medina

    University of Bayreuth,
    Germany

    Project Communication

  • About:

    Kaitlyn Medina is currently a master student of intercultural Anglophone studies at the University of Bayreuth. She graduated with honors with her BA in English literature in 2013 before co-founding the NGO Untold International in 2015, for which she served as chairman of the board until 2022. She is writing her MA thesis on metamorphosis and constructions of space in Richard Powers' The Overstory, and her research interests include critical posthumanisms, ecocriticism, decoloniality, and cultural semiotics. Her responsibilities with the RecAf project include graphic design, social media management, and editorial project management.


  • Ojo Blank

    University of Leipzig,
    Germany

    Project Coordinator

  • About:

    Ojo Blank is currently a master student and graduate assistant at the Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig. They studied African Studies in their bachelor in Leipzig and focus on decolonial/postcolonial theory, epistemologies and subaltern knowledge production. They are responsible for the coordination of fellowships and the reading group, the organisation of the Grant Application Workshops and co-produce the RecAf podcast series Afrikanists Assemble.

    Contact:

    recaf@uni-leipzig.de
    +49 341 97-37036

    Beethovenstraße 15, 04109 Leipzig
    GWZ, Room 2201

Six Universities

  • Logo Wukari University
    Federal University Wukari
    Nigeria
    Language and (forced) migration, African languages in teaching, literatures in African languages
    Weblink
  • Logo Leipzig University
    Leipzig University
    Germany
    Linguistic anthropology, non-representational linguistics, languages and languaging, critical sociolinguistics
    Weblink
  • Logo Stellenbosh University
    Stellenbosh University
    South Africa
    Education, multilingualism, identity politics
    Weblink
  • Logo Bayreuth University
    University of Bayreuth
    Germany
    Literatures in African languages, popular culture, knowledge and epistemology
    Weblink
  • Logo Cologne University
    University of Naples "L'Orientale"
    Italy
    African-language literatures, translation studies and sociolinguistics
    Weblink
  • Logo Moi University
    Moi University Eldoret
    Kenya
    Cooperation with the Department of Literature, Theatre & Film Studies and the department of Kiswahili and other African languages.
    Weblink
  • Network of Universities

    Six German and African universities aim to foster academic exchange and support and promote young scholars to recalibrate Afrikanistik.

    Click on any logo for more information.