Graham served as Pro-Director of SOAS between 2008-13 having previously held positions as RAE Director and Faculty Dean amongst others. His association with SOAS began as an undergraduate and later a research student. He returned to SOAS as a member of staff in 1979 from a post at the University of Maiduguri in Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the British Academy where he currently chairs its Africa Panel. He was the first editor of the Journal of African Cultural Studies and the founding President of the International Society for Oral Literature in Africa (ISOLA). He is a Trustee of the Britain-Nigeria Educational Trust and a Governor of the Harrow School Foundation. Graham was awarded an OBE for services to higher education and scholarship in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2013.
Charities
Commissioner of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission
Trustee of the following:
Harrow School Foundation
John Lyon Charity
Britain-Nigeria Educational Trust
Research interests
African language literature; comparative African literature; Hausa language, linguistics and literature; Nigerian culture and language issues; Oral Literature
Publications
The histories of an enlightened ruler: Malam Muhamman Bitemya Sambo, Garbosa II of Donga, Central Nigeria
Fardon, Richard and Furniss, Graham, 2021, Vestiges: Traces of Record (7), 2, pp 28-61
"Go by appearances at your peril": the Raina Kama writers' association in Kano, Nigeria, carving out a place for the "popular" in the Hausa literary landscape.
Furniss, Graham and Uba Adamu, Abdalla, 2012, Research in African Literatures (43), 4, pp 88-111
Analysing imagery: comments from short-form verbal art in Hausa
Furniss, Graham (2011). In: Lohr, Doris, (eds.), Rothmaler, Eva, (eds.) and Ziegelmeyer, Georg, (eds.), Kanuri, Borno and Beyond: Current Studies on the Lake Chad Region. Cologne: Ruediger Koeppe Verlag, pp 65-76
Innovation and Persistence: Literary Circles, New Opportunities, and Continuing Debates in Hausa Literary Production
Furniss, Graham (2006). In: Barber, Karin, (ed.), Africa's Hidden Histories. Everyday Literacy and Making the Self. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp 416-34
Creativity and Rhetoric [and] Création et rhétorique
Furniss, Graham (2005). In: Dauphin-Tinturier, A-M, (eds.) and Derive, J, (eds.), Oralité africaine et création : actes de colloque de l'Isola (10-12 juillet 2002). Paris: Karthala, pp 71-91, 663
Furniss, Graham (2005). In: Ricard, A, (eds.) and Veit-Wild, F, (eds.), Interfaces Between the Oral and the Written: Versions and Subversions in African Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp 267-90
Commentary upon Paul Newman's "Grades, vowel-tone classes and extensions in the Hausa verbal system"
Furniss, Graham (2002). In: Newman, Paul, (eds.), Jaggar, Philip J., (eds.) and Wolff, H. Ekkehard, (eds.), Chadic and Hausa Linguistics: Selected papers of Paul Newman with Commentaries. Cologne: Ruediger Koeppe Verlag, pp 65-6
Meaning and performance: gradations in the expression of disapproval in Hausa
Furniss, Graham (2001). In: Ibriszimow, Dymitr, (eds.), Leger, Rudolf, (eds.) and Seibert, Uwe, (eds.), Von Aegypten Zum Tschadsee: Eine Linguistische Reise Durch Afrika. Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag, pp 171-177
African Literature: Introduction [and] West African Literature
Furniss, Graham (2000). In: France, Peter, (ed.), The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 127-129, 132
Furniss, Graham and Fardon, Richard (2000). In: Furniss, Graham, (eds.) and Fardon, Richard, (eds.), African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition. Oxford: James Currey, pp 1-20
Mobilise the people: the qasida in Fulfulde and Hausa as purposive literature
Furniss, Graham and Boyd, Jean (1996). In: Sperl, Stefan, (eds.) and Shackle, Christopher, (eds.), Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, Vol. 1: Classical Traditions and Modern Meanings. Leiden: Brill, pp 429-449
Furniss, Graham (1996). In: Sperl, Stefan, (eds.) and Shackle, Christopher, (eds.), Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, Vol 2: Eulogy's Bounty, Meaning's Abundance. An Anthology. Leiden: Brill, pp 372-87
Frontiers and boundaries - African languages as political environment
Furniss, Graham and Fardon, Richard (1994). In: Fardon, Richard, (eds.) and Furniss, Graham, (eds.), African Languages, Development and the State. London: Routledge, pp 1-32
Furniss, Graham (1993). In: Preminger, Alex, (eds.) and Brogan, T. V. F., (eds.), The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, pp 496-497
Burlesque in Hausa: 'And my text for today is food' said Mr Matches
Furniss, Graham (1991). In: Baxter, P.T.W., (eds.) and Fardon, Richard, (eds.), Voice, Genre, Text: Anthropological Essays in Africa and Beyond. Manchester: John Rylands University Library of Manchester, pp 37-62
Furniss, Graham (1991). In: Rufai, Abba, (ed.), Nigerian Languages Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Kano: Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, pp 19-25
Standards in speech, spelling and style - the Hausa case
Furniss, Graham (1991). In: Cyffer, Norbert, (eds.), Schubert, K, (eds.) and Weier, H-I, (eds.), Language Standardization in Africa. Hamburg: Hamburg: Helmut Buske, pp 97-110
Carried by a Mystic Wind: B. W. Andrzejewski on the Somali Passion for Poetry and Language
Finnegan, Ruth, (eds.), Furniss, Graham, (eds.) and Orwin, Martin, (eds.) (2011). London: Taylor and Francis. (Special Issue of Journal of African Cultural Studies; Vol.23 no.1)
