SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Supervision is provided for research leading to MPhil and PhD degrees within the broad general area of African studies. Research topics such as the study of a language (from a descriptive, comparative, philological or textual point of view), or of literature (whether author-based, thematic or comparative), or of any of the performing arts, which falls within our own core expertise, are supervised entirely in the Department. However, there is great potential for extending the range of topics by means of joint supervision with colleagues from other departments and centres.

Some Recent Research Theses

• Lizzy Attree, ‘The Literary Response to HIV and AIDS in South Africa and Zimbabwe, 1990-2005’
• Zoë Norridge, ‘Perceptions of Pain: Narratives of Hurt and Healing in Contemporary African Literature’

Academic Staff and their Research Areas

Dr Lindiwe Dovey BA(Harvard) PHD(Cantab)
African film and video; literary adaptation in Africa; filmic mediations of African performance arts (music, dance, theatre); contemporary film theory and ‘World Cinema’; representations of exile, immigration and violence; structures of African film production, distribution, and exhibition; African film festivals.

Dr Kai Easton BA(Gettysburg) MA PHD(London)
Colonial and postcolonial studies; South African literature (the Cape, Wicomb, Coetzee); gender and the cultures of travel; Indian Ocean diasporas; intertextuality; fiction, history, and autobiography.

Professor Graham Furniss BA PHD(London)
African language literature; comparative African literature; Hausa language, linguistics and literature.

Dr Chege Githiora BA(Mexico) PHD(Michigan)
Swahili and Gikuyu language, linguistics; Translation and Lexicography; African Diaspora Studies.

Professor Philip J Jaggar BA MPHIL(London) MA PHD(UCLA)
Hausa language and linguistics; comparative Chadic

Dr Lutz Marten MA PHD(London)
Bantu languages and linguistics, Herero, Swahili, syntax, semantics, pragmatics

Professor Jeff Opland BA, BSc, MA, PhD (Cape Town)
Folklore and oral literature; African praise poetry; the history of Xhosa literature

Dr Martin Orwin BA PHD(London)
Somali and Amharic language and literature; metrics; phonology

Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame BA(Ghana) DPHIL(Oxon)
Post-colonial writing with special reference to anglophone and francophone African American writing; comparative national literatures

Dr Akin Oyètádé BA(IFE) DIPLING PHD(London)
Yoruba language and literature; Yoruba culture and linguistics with special reference to phonology; Yoruba in the diaspora

Dr Alena Rettová PHD(Charles University, Prague)
Swahili literature; African philosophy; Afrophone philosophical discourses; literatures in African languages.