Aretha Phiri
Aretha Phiri
Position: Associate Professor
BA (Hons) Rhodes, MA (Rhodes), PhD (Edinburgh)
Email Address: A.Phiri@ru.ac.za
Teaching and Research Interests:
American and African-American literature, South African (post-)apartheid literature, Afrodiasporic and transnational literature, realist and (post-)modernist fiction, poetry and short stories.
My research broadly interrogates the intersectional interactions of race, ethnicity, culture, gender and sexualities in comparative, transatlantic and transnational, considerations of identity and subjectivity, with a particular focus on American, African-American, and contemporary Afrodiasporic literature.
Selected Publications:
Books:
2020: African Philosophical and Literary Possibilities: Re-reading the Canon. Ed. Aretha Phiri. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Book Chapters:
2022: “The Ludic Impulse: Race Narratives ‘at play’ in Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light.” Epistemic Injustice and Creative Agency. Eds. Sarah Colvin and Stephanie Galasso. London: Routledge, 151-174.
2022: “Trumping the House that Race Built: Deracinating Twenty-First Century American Politics.” Cultures of Populism: Institutions, Practices and Resistance. Ed. Merle A. Williams. London: Routledge. 100-113.
2022: “Coloured by History, Shaped Otherwise: A ‘Decolonial’ Reading of Zoë Wicomb.” The Short Story in South Africa: Contemporary Trends and Perspectives. Eds. Rebecca Fasselt and Corinne Sandwith. London: Routledge. 46-62.
2021: “(In)visible Man: Tracing Ralph Ellison’s Legacy to South Africa.” Global Ralph Ellison: Aesthetics and PoliticsBeyond US Borders. Eds. Tessa Roynon and Marc C. Conner. Oxford: Peter Lang. 155-187.
2020: “Transgressing Borders: (Re)imagining Africa(ns) in the World.” African Philosophical and Literary Possibilities: Re-reading the Canon. Ed. Aretha Phiri. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 113-130.
2020: “Introduction: Re-reading the Canon, Re-reading Africa.” African Philosophical and Literary Possibilities: Re-reading the Canon. Ed. Aretha Phiri. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. xi-xix.
2020: “Fingering the Jagged Grain: Rereading Afropolitanism (and Africa) in Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go.” Afropolitan Literature as World Literature. Ed. James Hodapp. London: Bloomsbury. 151-166.
2019: “‘Lost in Translation’: Re-reading the Contemporary Afrodiasporic Condition in Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go.” Debating the Afropolitan. Eds. Emilia María Durán-Almarza, Ananya Jahanara Kabir, and Carla Rodríguez González. London: Routledge. 38-52.
2014: “Dis(re)membering Bodies: Disability and Self-Constitution in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Octavia Butler’s Kindred” (with Maja Milatovic). Assembling Identities. Ed. Sam Wiseman. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2014. 131-143.
2014: “Intimate Subject(ivitie)s: Race, Gender and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Critical Insights: Violence in Literature. Ed. Stacey Peebles. Salem Press, 2014. 136-152.
Journal Articles:
2023: “Revising the Black Atlantic: African, Diasporic, Queer and Feminist Perspectives.” Special Issue. Guest Ed. Aretha Phiri. Cultural Studies journal. (in press; accepted for publication)
2021: “Response” (with Derek Attridge). Special Issue: “Geographies of Comparison: Ireland and South Africa.” Eds. Coílín Parsons and Agata Szczeszak-Brewer. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 23 (1): 170-175.
2020: “The Race for Reparation(s), the (Im)possibility of Repair in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Antjie Krog’s Country of my Skull.” Safundi 21 (1): 69-84.
2020: “Trumping the House that Race Built: Deracinating Twenty-First Century American Politics.” English Studies in Africa 63 (1): 45-58.
2018: “Black, White and Everything in-between: Unravelling the Times with Zoë Wicomb.” English in Africa 45 (2): 117-128.
2017: “‘Lost in Translation’: Re-reading the Contemporary Afrodiasporic Condition in Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go.” Thematic Issue: Debating the Afropolitan.” European Journal of English Studies 21 (2): 144-158.
2017: “Expanding Black Subjectivities in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah.” Cultural Studies 31 (1): 121-142.
2015: “Queer Subjectivities in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘On Monday of Last Week’ and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.” Agenda 103/ 29 (1): 155-163.
2013: “Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut and the Dialectics of Race in South Africa: Interrogating Images of Whiteness and Blackness in Black Literature and Culture.” Safundi, 14 (2): 161-174.
2011: “Searching for the Ghost in the Machine: The ‘Africanist’ presence in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” English Studies in Africa journal, 54 (1): 88-104.
Academic engagements/portfolios:
English 1 (2018-2020) and 3 (2022) Course Coordinator
English 1, 3 and Honours Paper Coordinator
Academic Representative on University Senate (2020-2022)
Rhodes Plagiarism Committee (appointed by Senate) and Nominations Committee
Humanities Faculty Research Committee
Institutional/Professional Activities:
External Examiner: Department of English Literary Studies at the University of Cape Town.
Editorial Board:
Safundi (the Journal of South African and American Studies) and English in Africa journal.
Advisory Board: Transnational Literature Journal
Member: Women’s Academic Solidarity Association (WASA)
Member: African Feminist Initiative (AFI), Penn State University
Member: British Association for American Studies
Independent Reviewer: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
Research Affiliations:
National Research Foundation (NRF) Y-1 rated researcher (2019-)
Library of Congress, Washington DC, Kluge Fellow (2022-2023)
Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) Iso Lomso Fellow (2017-2019)
Visiting Fellowships: National Humanities Center (NHC), North Carolina (2018); Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR) at the University of Central Lancashire, UK (2018); Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS) at Liverpool University, UK (2018)
Public Engagements/Fora:
2022: Invited Guest on PEN/SA: “The 70th Anniversary of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” https://pensouthafrica.co.za/s4e3-the-70th-anniversary-of-ralph-ellisons-invisible-man/
2021: Invited Discussant on The Forum at BBC World Service: “Toni Morrison: The Legacy of a Literary Legend”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct1rlq
2020: https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-but-slavery-isnt-our-only-narrative-137016
2019: https://theconversation.com/how-toni-morrisons-legacy-plays-out-in-south-africas-universities-121755]
2010: Part of the ‘Reading Africa’ Initiative, supported by the Department of Arts and Culture, SA, and concerned with promoting reading of African literature by young learners, particularly in the Eastern Cape.
Last Modified: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:27:48 SAST