Dr. Joseph Michael Kwanya
Lecturer - Literature
- Institute of Language Studies
- Department of English Language
- jmkwanya@kab.ac.ug
- +256768492371
- PhD (Stellenbosch), MA (Nairobi), BA (Nairobi)
- | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | Semantic Scholar | Academia
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Qualifications
PhD in English Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; MA in Literature and BA in Literature and Political Science, University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Research Interests
My research explores African literature with a focus on feminist thought, speculative fiction, and narrative theory. I am particularly interested in how African writers use counterfactuals, myth, and alternative historiographies to reimagine history, identity, and futurity.
Publications
J. Kwanya
. (2025)
. Constructions of Home in the Unhomely: Home-making in Nnedi Okorafor’s Africanfuturist Narratives
. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, [online] Volume , pp. 1-17. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23277408.2025.2491272?src=exp-la#abstract
J. Kwanya
. (2024)
. “We are More Than This”: Counterhistories and Female Voices in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King
. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, [online] Volume 11(1), pp. 40-56. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23277408.2024.2409498#d1e119
J. Kwanya
. (2022)
. Feminist Imaginings of African Futures: Counterfactual Mythmaking in Nnedi Okorafor’s The Book of Phoenix and Who Fears Death
. Literary Geographies, [online] Volume 8(2), pp. 224-240. Available at: https://www.literarygeographies.net/index.php/LitGeogs/article/view/262
J. Kwanya
. (2022)
. “Turning the Fables”: Counterfactuality in Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift
. Research in African Literatures, [online] Volume 53(3), pp. 51-64. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/900033
J. Kwanya
. (2022)
. “There is Another Woman in the Story”: Counterfactuality and Re-mythification in Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu
. English in Africa, [online] Volume 49(2), pp. 27-47. Available at: https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.4314/eia.v49i2.2
T. Odhiambo, J. Kwanya
. (2022)
. The ‘Perplexing African in China’: A Reading of Black Ghosts by Ken Kamoche
. Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, [online] Volume 13(1), pp. 63-74. Available at: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jolte/article/view/226545
Projects
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Presentations
- “Ecological Agency and Pandemic Ethics in Véronique Tadjo’s In the Company of Men.” The 7 th Mashariki Literary and Cultural Studies Conference, University of Dar Es Salaam. 21 August-23 August 2025.
- “Counterfactuals as a Method for Alternative Archiving in Africa.” Archiving, Memory and Method from the Global South conference, Makerere University. 16 October-20 October 2024.
- “‘Yat Madit’: Dilman Dila’s Imagination of a Post-dictatorial Uganda.” 8th Es’kia Colloquium, University of the Witwatersrand. 31 July – 2 August 2024.
- “Images, Songs, and the Disnarrated: Alternative Narratives of the Italo-Ethiopian War in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King.” Rhodes African Studies Centre Seminar Series, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa. 10 October 2023.
- “Counterfactual Narratives and Power Structures in African Historical and Speculative Fiction.” The 6th Mashariki Literary and Cultural Studies Conference. Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. 23rd-25th August 2023.
- “Images, Songs, and the Disnarrated: Alternative Narratives of the Italo-Ethiopian War in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King.” Mashariki Article Writing workshop. Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. 22nd August 2023.