MA and PhD,  Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III)

Office: Room 110A, AC Jordan Building
Email: polo.moji@uct.ac.za

 

Research Interests

African & Afrodiasporic Literatures,

Literatures in Translation ( French/Francophone)

Comparative Literature

Intersectional Feminisms

Hauntology and Sociological imaginaries

Critical Race Theory

Critical Black / Urban Geographies 

Biography

Polo has a PhD in Comparative and General Literature from the Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) in 2011. Her research interests are comparative approaches to literature, African and Afrodiasporic narrative forms, literatures in translation (French/Francophone), Intersectional Feminisms and Critical Black Urban Geographies. She has co-edited the special journal issues "Ghostly Border-Crossings: Europe in Afrodiasporic Narratives” (2019), "The Cinematic City: Desire, Form and the African Urban" (2019) Cinematic Imaginaries of the African City, Social Dynamics (2021). She led the organizing team for the 4th African Feminisms Conference (November 2021).

She is author of Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives (Routledge, 2022) : : www.routledge.com/9780367637514

 

Selected Publications

Book Chapters

Moji P. B. Home/land: Diasporic Space and Topologies of Relation in Nimrod’s L’Or des Rivières (Chad, 2010). Spaces of Longing and Belonging: Spatiality, Culture and Identity in Literature and Film, Editors: Bill Richardson and Brigitte Le Juez, Brill Rodopi. 2019, 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004402935_004

Moji, P. Literary Adventures in Francophone Afropea: Léonora Miano and Music as a Language of Afro-diasporic Subjectivity. Multilingual Currents in Literature, Translation and Culture, Editors: Rachael Gilmour and Tamar Steinitz. September 2017. Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature Series.,168-187. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315651675

Peer-reviewed Articles

Moji, P. B. "Hyenas/hustlers: An Afrosur/realist reading of Touki Bouki (1973)." Journal of African Cinemas 11, no. 3 (2019): 193-205.  https://doi.org/10.1386/jac_00016_1

Moji, P. Taste and Sentiment: Cartographies of Afropean Affiliation in Leonora Miano’s Soulfood Équatoriale (2009), Contemporary French and Francophone Studies,22:5, Routledge Taylor & Francis , 12 July 2019, 562-570. https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2018.1606384

Moji, P. The hauntological imaginary in Bernadine Evaristo’s Soul Tourists (2005). Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, Vol 56 No 1, Special Issue: Ghostly border-crossings: Europe in African and Afrodiasporic narrative. University of Pretoria, , 29 April 2019, 11-23.https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.56i1.6268  

Moji, P. Divas and Deviance: Hip-Hop Feminism and Black Visuality in Lauren Ekué’s Icône Urbaine (2006). Agenda, Special Issue: Gender and the Popular imaginary. Routledge Taylor & Francis & UNISA Press, 28 August 2018, 10-20. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10130950.2018.1485287

Moji, P. (Un)Known Bodies: Dissecting Sara Baartman in the Francophone Autobiography, 53cm (Bessora,1999)).  Journal of the African Literature Association, Routledge Taylor and Francis & African Literature Association, 12 October 2017, 183-194. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21674736.2017.1375656

Moji, P. Prodi-gals: Statelessness and Place-lessness in Lauretta Ngcobo’s The Prodigal Daughter (2012), Scrutiny 2: issues in English studies in Southern Africa, Special Issue - Lauretta Ngcobo, Routledge Taylor & Francis & UNISA Press, 30 September 2017, 64-7., http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2017.1311364

Moji, P. New Names, Translated Subjectivities: (Dis) location and (Re) naming in NoViolet Bulwayo’s We Need New Names, 2013 (Zimbabwe).  Journal of African Cultural Studies. Routledge Taylor & Francis, 6 January 2015, 181-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2014.993937

Edited Special Issues / Collective Volumes

Moji, P., Mupotsa D. & Himmelman N. (eds). The Cinematic City: Desire, Form and the African Urban (Special Issue). Journal of African Cinemas. Volume 11, Number 3, Intellect Books, Bristol & Wilmington (NC), 1 December 2019,  ISSN 1754-9221 (Print); ISSN 1754-923X (Online)

Moji, P. & Himmelman N. (eds). Special Issue: Ghostly border-crossings: Europe in African and Afrodiasporic narratives, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, Vol 56 No 1, University of Pretoria, -29 April 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.56i1.6265  

Keywords: 

African literature, diasporic literature, African francophone literature, intersectionality, Feminism, critical black geographies