Chair of English Department Katherine Breen, Herskovits professor Evan Mwangi, and Weinberg Dean Adrian Randolph. Photo by prof. Peter Mwangi
Professor Evan Mwangi from Northwestern University’s English Department has been named the Melville J. Herskovits Professor of African Studies in a ceremony that took place on March 10, 2022 in the Guild Lounge where he received his title from Weinberg College Dean, Adrian Randolph. As he received his title, Mwangi shared his academic journey from sciences to English major, what it means to say you are an Africanist, and Herskovits’s legacy regarding African languages and liberation. He highlighted the profound impact some of his woman professors had on his approach to understanding and teaching African literature.
Mwangi joined Northwestern in 2005 after teaching for two years at Ohio State University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Nairobi in 2002. He specializes in 20th century Anglophone African literature, focusing on the intersection of nationalism, gender, and sexuality in canonical and popular artistic expressions, relating local texts to global theories.
Mwangi has published on Nazizi Hirji, Chinua Achebe, K. Sello Duiker, Amandina Lihamba, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, David Maillu, Henry ole Kulet, Margaret Ogola, and Francis Imbuga, among other modern African artists and intellectuals. Mwangi has published six books, the most recent of which is The Postcolonial Animal: African Literature and Posthuman Ethics (Michigan, 2019). His other works include Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality (State University of New York Press, 2009) and Translation in African Contexts (2017). His articles and poems have appeared in Mwangaza, TDR: The Drama Review, Research in African Literatures, African Studies Review, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, English Studies in Africa, The Nairobi Journal of Literature, PMLA, and Africa Today. In addition, he is a public intellectual and has published frequently in the Nairobi’s influential newspaper The Daily Nation, commenting on social issues, politics, and popular culture.
Currently, Mwangi is working on two book projects. The first explores the global rewritings of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the second surveys Indian Ocean literatures and philosophies.