I am currently an Associate Professor of African Literature at the Faculty of Art & Philosophy, Ghent University, where I am attached to the Department of Language and Culture, within the African Studies group.
I am the author of a scholarly book - African Literature in the Digital Age: Class and Sexual Politics in New Writing from Nigeria and Kenya (2021) . It is the first book-length study on the relationship between African literature and digital humanities. The book shows how the digital space provides a new avenue to move literature beyond the restrictions of book publishing on the continent. Arguing that writers are putting their work on cyberspace because communities are emerging from this space, and because increasing numbers of Africans use the internet as part of their day-to-day engagement with their societies and the world. The book explores this transformative development in Nigeria and Kenya, both significant countries in African literature and two of the continent's largest digital technology hubs. Funded by the Knowledge Unlatched Select 2023 collection, this book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons License: CC BY NC.
Furthermore, I have co-edited two special issues on African Digital Humanities, and currently working on a co-edited book on the digital in Africa.
I am also currently working on my second book on the Network of Yoruba Print Culture. This book is based on my current research project, which is entitled "YorubaPrint" – a Starting Grant project funded by the European Research Council, of which I am the principal investigator, with postdoctoral researchers and a doctoral student working under me on the project.
I am on the editorial board of the US-based peer-reviewed journal Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture. In this capacity, I serve as the principal expert on African queer writing and culture.
I was an Assistant Professor of Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. I also held a diaspora fellowship at the English Department, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana, which was funded by Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria). I have a PhD in African Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK (2012), and after my PhD, I worked at University of Leeds (UK), University of Bayreuth (Germany) and University of Bremen (Germany).
Prior to becoming a scholar, I was a journalist in the UK. Back in 2001, I trained as a journalist at the University of Westminster, London, UK, after which I had various stints as a journalist and correspondent for various media outfits that included BBC News Online, the Christian Science Monitor (USA). The Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), Jobs.ac.uk and Prospects Today (UK). I am also currently the publishing-editor of an online magazine – The New Black magazine.
I am open to working with MA and PhD students working in the area of African literature, Yoruba studies, Sexualiy in Africa, African Digital Humanities, African cinema, and African book culture.
