Professor emeritus Graham Furniss, OBE FBA, was Pro-Director for Research and Enterprise at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2008-13.
He chaired the British Academy Africa Panel, and was a former President of the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK). His research has been focused on popular culture and oral and written literature in Hausa, a major lingua franca of West Africa. He previously worked at Bayero University, Kano, and at the University of Maiduguri, both in Nigeria.
His publications include Poetry, Prose and Popular Culture in Hausa (EUP), Orality: the Power of the Spoken Word (Palgrave Macmillan) and, with Richard Fardon (co-ed.), African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition (James Currey) and African Languages, Development and the State (Routledge).
He chaired the steering committees that produced The Nairobi Report: Frameworks for Africa-UK Research Collaboration in the Social Sciences and Humanities in 2009, and Foundations for the Future: Supporting the Early Careers of African Researchers in 2011, both published by the British Academy and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.
He was the founding President of the International Society for Oral Literature in Africa (ISOLA), and founding editor of the Journal of African Cultural Studies. He was a Commissioner of the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission and a Trustee of the 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
Bibliography of Hausa Popular Fiction 1987-2002
Furniss, Graham, Buba, Malami and Burgess, William (2004). Koeln: (Ruediger Koeppe Verlag)
L’évolution de la parole patrimoniale haoussa dans de nouveaux contextes médiatiques: l’exemple des pérégrinations du motif traditional d’un conte-type au théatre, au livre et à la vidéo
Furniss, Graham, 2015, cArgo, Revue Internationale d’Anthropologie Culturelle and Sociale (4), pp 71-83
"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
Carried by a Mystic Wind: B. W. Andrzejewski on the Somali Passion for Poetry and Language [Special issue of: Journal of African Cultural Studies. Vol.23 no.1]
Finnegan, Ruth, (eds.), Furniss, Graham, (eds.) and Orwin, Martin, (eds.) (2011). London: Taylor and Francis. (Journal of African Cultural Studies)
A tale of two print cultures: Hausa texts in ajami and roman script
Furniss, Graham (2023). In: Newell, Stephanie, (eds.) and Barber, Karin, (eds.), African Literature in Transition: Print Cultures and African Literature 1860-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 112-128
Reflections on the challenges to the development of area expertise
Furniss, Graham (2020). In: Niblock, Tim, (eds.), Yang, Guang, (eds.) and Zhou, Yan, (eds.), Area Studies: New Realities, New Conceptions. Beijing: Institute for International and Area Studies, Tsinghua University, pp 28-48
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
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
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 (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
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
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
Furniss, Graham (1991). In: Rufai, Abba, (ed.), Nigerian Languages Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Kano: Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, pp 19-25
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
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
Typification and evaluation: a dynamic process in rhetoric
Furniss, Graham (1989). In: Barber, Karin, (eds.) and de Moraes Farias, P.F., (eds.), Discourse and its Disguises: the Interpretation of African Oral Texts. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Centre of West African Studies, pp 24-33
The language of praise and vilification in two poems by Muhammadu Audi of Gwandu about Abubakar, emir of Nupe
Furniss, Graham (1988). In: Furniss, Graham, (eds.) and Jaggar, Philip J., (eds.), Studies in Hausa: Language and Linguistics. London: Kegan Paul International, pp 181-201
Furniss, Graham (1988). In: Larby, Patricia M., (ed.), New Directions in African Bibliography. London: Standing Conference on Library Materials in Africa (SCOLMA), pp 15-30
Perspectives on African Studies in the United Kingdom: languages and literatures
Furniss, Graham (1986). In: Sternberg, Ilse, (eds.) and Larby, Patricia M., (eds.), African studies : papers presented at a colloquium at the British Library, 7-9 January 1985. London: The British Library, pp 34-41
Studies in Hausa language, literature and culture: the first Hausa international conference
Furniss, Graham (1984). In: Yaro Yahaya, Ibrahim, (eds.) and Rufa'i, Abba, (eds.), Language and literature in Hausa: proceedings of the first International Conference on Hausa Language and Literature, held at Bayero University, Kano, July 7-10, 1978. Kano: Bayero University, pp 436-451
Furniss, Graham (1983). In: Wolff, Ekkehard, (eds.) and Meyer-Bahlburg, Hilke, (eds.), Studies in Chadic and Afroasiatic linguistics : papers from the International Colloquium on the Chadic Language Family and the Symposium on Chadic within Afroasiatic, at the University of Hamburg, September 14-18, 1981. Hamburg: Helmut Buske, pp 287-300
