Biography

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

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

Polo B. Moji  ( PhD Sorbonne Nouvelle,  Paris III) is a literary scholar whose research interests range from intersectional feminisms, comparative African and Afrodiasporic literatures, as well as critical black geographies.  Moji’s monograph Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives (Routledge, 2022) won  the 2024 African Literature Association First Book Award. She is also the co-editor of Cinematic Imaginaries of the African City (Routledge, 2023) and Conversational Bridges in African Feminisms: Weaving Knowledge Together (HSRC Press, 2025). Her recent fellowships include a DAAD visiting professorship at Humboldt University of Berlin (2024-2025), and an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship (2025-2026).  She a co-investigator for the African Literary Cities research project. 

Research and Teaching  Interests

African & Afrodiasporic Literary and Cultural Studies, Literatures in Translation (French/Francophone), Comparative Literature, Black and African Feminisms, Critical Black & Urban Geographies

Selected Publications

Single-Authored Books

Moji, P.B. Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives. London & New York: Routledge African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies Series, March 2022.  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003120544

Edited Books

[ IN PROCESS] Moji P.B & Nkula-Wens L., African Literary Cities: Hubs, Maps, Literary Urban Ecologies, WITS University Press [projected publication 2027]

Moji P. B., Mohamed K., Swai Aika. (eds.) (2025) Conversational Bridges in African Feminisms: Weaving Knowledge Together, Pretoria: HSRC Press. ISBN: 978-0-7969-2696-8 https://repository.hsrc.ac.za/handle/20.500.11910/24612?show=full

Moji, P., Mupotsa D. & Himmelman N. (eds) (2023):  Cinematic Imaginaries of the African City. New York: Routledge, ISBN 9781032533193 (https://www.routledge.com/Cinematic-Imaginaries-of-the-African-City/Mupotsa-Moji-Himmelman/p/book/9781032533193 (special issue republished as book) 

Edited Special Journal Issues 

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

Moji, P., Mupotsa D. & Himmelman N. (eds). (2020) Journal of African Cinemas, Vol 11, No 3, The Cinematic City: Desire, Form and the African Urban’ Intellect Books, Bristol & Wilmington (NC) https://doi.org/10.1386/jac_00015_2

Book Chapters

Moji P. B., (2024) ‘Mugabe Had Fallen, Long Live Zimbabwe: Reimagining Self and Nationhood Through Panashe Chigumdzi’s These Bones Will Rise Again (2018) and Yvonne Vera’s Nehanda (1993)’. The Routledge Handbook for Global South Studies on Subjectivities, Georgina Cebey, Susanne Goumegou and Sebastian Thies (eds). Routledge Taylor & Francis. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-for-Global-South-Studies-on-Subjectivities/Thies-Goumegou-Cebey/p/book/9781032106694 

Moji P. B. (2019) ‘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.  Bill Richardson and Brigitte Le Juez, (eds), Leiden: Brill Rodopi33-48. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004402935_004

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

Peer-reviewed Articles

Moji, P. B., ‘Blackness Blurred: (Un)Belonging, Kinship, And Métissage in Marie Ndiaye’s Ladivine’, Journal of the African Literature Association, 17:1, 33-48, Routledge Taylor and Francis & African Literature Association, 3 March 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/21674736.2023.2178723

Moji, P., ‘Oceanic Bellies And Liquid Feminism in Fatou Diome’s Le Ventre De l’Atlantique (Senegal/France, 2003)’, Cultural Studies, 2022, 298-315. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2022.2104899

Moji, P. B., ’Hyenas/Hustlers: An Afrosur/Realist Reading of Touki Bouki (1973)’, Journal of African Cinemas 11: 3, 2019, 193 - 205.  https://doi.org/10.1386/jac_00016_1

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