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Languages, Literatures & Cultures

Dr Dmitry Bondarev

Researcher, db5@soas.ac.uk

  • Early Kanuri dialects, comparative Saharan, Kanuri glosses n Arabic script, linguistics of literacy, phonology and morphosyntax, palaeography.
  • Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Kamerun (Cameroon)
Dr David Dalby

Emeritus Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, dalby@linguasphere.org

  • Comparative study and mapping of African languages; referential classification of the languages of the world; development of indigenous African writing systems; problems of language and education in Africa.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
Dr Lindiwe Dovey

Lecturer in African Film and Performance Arts, SOAS, ld18@soas.ac.uk

  • African film and video (particularly their intersection);
  • filmic mediations of African performance arts (music, dance, theatre);
  • literary adaptation in Africa; 
  • contemporary film theory and 'World Cinema';
  • exile/immigration and violence in relation to African screen media; 
  • structures of film production, distribution, and exhibition in Africa; use of African languages in film.
Dr Kai Easton

Lecturer in African Literature and Diaspora Studies, SOAS, ke@soas.ac.uk

  • Colonial and postcolonial studies, especially South African literature (the Cape, Wicomb, Coetzee
  • Gender and the culture of travel;
  • Indian Ocean diasporas;
  • theories of fiction and history.
  • South Africa; Southern Africa
Professor Graham Furniss

Professor of African Language Literature, SOAS, gf1@soas.ac.uk

  • Hausa language, linguistics and literature; African literatures both oral and written; popular culture.
  • West Africa, Nigeria
Dr Chege Githiora

Senior Lecturer in Swahili, Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa, SOAS, cg17@soas.ac.uk

  • Swahili language, literature and linguistics;
  • Lexicography in general;
  • African Diaspora in Latin America.
  • Kenya,Tanzania, Mexico
Dr Frances Harding

Lecturer in African Drama, SOAS, fh@soas.ac.uk

  • Performance in Africa; theatre for development; Tiv culture; television and film; masquerade and puppetry; theatre as socio-political action; experience of acting.
  • Nigeria
Emeritus Professor Richard Hayward

Professor of Ethiopian Linguistic Studies, SOAS

  • Historical comparative and descriptive linguistics relating to Omotic, East Cushitic and Ethiopian Semitic languages; phonology, morphology and phonetics; lexicographical work on Gamo (Ethiopia).
  • Ethiopia
Dr. Seraphin Kamdem

Teaching Fellow, SOAS, Department of Languages and Cultures, jk58@soas.ac.uk 

  • African Languages and Education
  • Multilingual adult literacy in the rural areas of Cameroon
Professor Philip Jaggar

Professor of West African Linguistics, SOAS, pj@soas.ac.uk

  • Linguistic description of Hausa; comparative (West) Chadic; social anthropology of Hausaland (blacksmithing in Kano).
  • Nigeria
Dr Lutz Marten

Lecturer in Southern African Languages, SOAS, lm5@soas.ac.uk

  • Comparative Bantu; theoretical and African linguistics; syntax; semantics; pragmatics
  • Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, SADEC
Dr Mpalive Msiska

Lecturer in English and Humanities, BC, m.msiska@bbk.ac.uk

  • Representations of identity in African literature and philosophy; the problem of cultural authenticity in Wole Soyinka's work.
  • East and Central Africa, Malawi
Dr Martin Orwin

Lecturer in Somali and Amharic, SOAS, mo1@soas.ac.uk

  • Somali and Amharic language and literature; Somali poetry, particularly metrical and stylistic analysis.
  • Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia
Mr Godwin Kwadwo Osei-Nyame

Lecturer in African Literature, SOAS, ko9@soas.ac.uk

  • Main research interests are literature and nationalism, post-colonial theory and fiction, gender and national liberation, the politics of national identity and African-American writings.
  • Forthcoming publications include:
    • 'Chinua Achebe Writing Culture: Representations of Gender and Tradition in Things Fall Apart', Research in African Literatures
    • 'Love and Nation: Fanon's African Revolution and Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born', Journal of Commonwealth Literature
Dr Akin Oyetade

Lecturer in Yoruba, SOAS, ao2@soas.ac.uk

  • Yoruba language, oral and written literature, and culture; application of non-linear theories of phonology to Yoruba; Yoruba dialectology and the standardisation of Yoruba; Yoruba in the diaspora.
  • Nigeria
Dr Alena Rettová

Lecturer in Swahili Literature and Culture, SOAS, ar42@soas.ac.uk

  • Swahili literature;
  • African philosophy; 
  • Afrophone philosophical discourses; 
  • Literatures in African languages
Dr Farouk Topan

Senior Lecturer in Swahili, SOAS, ft@soas.ac.uk

  • Religion and society on the Swahili coast; genres of Swahili oral literature; performance of Swahili oral arts especially the dance and songs of spirit-mediumship cults; child socialisation and Swahili didactic songs; relations between Swahili-speaking coastal peoples of East Africa.
  • Tanzania.