Olakunle George
Associate Professor of English:
English
Phone: +1 401 863 2879
Olakunle_George@Brown.EDU
Olakunle George has research interests in African literature, Black Atlantic cultural criticism, postcolonial studies, and literary and cultural theory.
Biography
George has taught classes on African literary and cultural criticism, black-Atlantic discourses, and Anglo-American literary and cultural theory. He has held a research fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and authored a book titled Relocating Agency: Modernity and African Letters (State University of New York Press, 2003). His articles have appeared in Comparative Literature; Comparative Literature Studies; Diacritics; Novel: A Forum on Fiction; Research in African Literatures; and Representations. His current book project is entitled Pagans and Patriots: Conversion and the Text of Africa.
Interests
My current research involves a book-length study of (i) writings by black and so-called "native" Christian missionaries in West Africa in the 19th century, and (ii) autobiographies, novels, and other writings by African intellectuals in the mid-20th century. The figures whose works I examine include the following: Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Reverend Thomas Birch Freeman, J. E. Kwegyir Aggrey, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
Degrees
Ph.D. Cornell University, 1992B.A. University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1984
Awards
Fall 2006
Faculty Fellowship Award, Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University
2004
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award for my book, Relocating Agency: Modernity and African Letters
Fall 1996
Fellow, Humanities Center, University of Oregon
1995-96
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
Affiliations
Modern Language Association
African Literature Association
Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
International Society for Oral Literature in Africa (ISOLA)
Teaching
My teaching interests are: African Fiction Written in English; Black Atlantic Narratives of Africa; Postcolonial Literature; Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Theory
Funded Research
Fall 2006
Faculty Fellowship Award, Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University
Project Title: "Pagans and Patriots: Conversion and the Text of Africa"
Fall 1996
Fellow, Humanities Center, University of Oregon
Project Title: "The Modernity of Anglophone African Fiction"
1995-96
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
Project Title: "The Modernity of Anglophone African Fiction"
Curriculum Vitae
