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Gῖchingiri Ndῖgῖrῖgῖ

Gichingiri Ndigirigi

Professor

318 McClung Tower
Phone: (865) 974-6942
Fax: (865) 974-6926
jndigiri@utk.edu

Education

  • B.A., M.A. University of Nairobi, Kenya
  • Ph.D., UCLA

Research and Teaching Interests

  • African, African diaspora literatures and performance.
  • African studies, postcolonial and transnational studies.

Publications

Edited collection

  • Unmasking the African Dictator: Essays on Postcolonial African Literature. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014.

Articles and Book Chapters

  • “The mouth that ate itself”: Reflections on Joseph Kamaru, oral artist extraordinaire.” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 58.1 (2021), 10-17. doi:10.17159/tl.v58i1.10413.
  • “Who do you think you are, woman?” Wangari Maathai Answers in Unbowed.” Eds. Tanure Ojaide, Joyce Ashuntantang. Routledge Handbook of Minority Discourses in African Literature. New York: Routledge, 2020. 195-205.
  • “Discovering/rediscovering “home” through Ngũgĩ’s early novels.” Journal of the African Literature Association, 13(1), 112-130.
  • “Emergency-era Trauma in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat.” Eds. C. Kebaya, C. Muriungi, & J. K. S. Makokha. Cultural Archives of Atrocity. London: Routledge, 2019. 210-225
  • “Mythical Hero or Tragic Failure? An Interrogation of the Jomo Kenyatta “Black People’s Moses” Mystique in Two Kenyan Patriographies.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 30.2 (2018): 192- 207. Online.
  • “Autobiographical Prototypes in Ngũgĩ’s Early Fiction and Drama.” Eds. Simon Gikandi, & Ndirangu Wachanga. Ngũgĩ: Reflections on his Life of Writing. Suffolk, Great Britain: James Currey, 2018. 156-162
  • “Reverse Appropriations and Transplantation in Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah.” Ed. Ernest Emenyonu. A Companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. London: James Currey, 2017: 199-211.
  • “Popular Songs and Resistance: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Maitu Njugĩra.” Popular Music and Society 40.1 (2017): 22-36.
  • “Bloodhounds at the Gate: Trauma, Narrative Memory, and Melancholia in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wartime Memoirs.” Research in African Literatures 47.4 (2016): 91-111.
  • “Character Names and Types in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross and Wizard of the Crow.” Ufahamu 38.3 (2015): 189-216.
  • Two encyclopedia entries on Kenyan theater in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting. Ed. Simon Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  • “Kamĩrĩĩthũ in Retrospect” African Theatre Journal 13 (2014): 53-59.
  • “Teaching Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Drama in the American Academy.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ngugĩ wa Thiong’o. Ed. Oliver Lovesey. New York: MLA, 2012: 147-156.
  • “Feminist Nationalism in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ngugĩ wa Thiong’o. Ed. Oliver Lovesey. New York: MLA, 2012: 222-231.
  • “Discrepant Cosmopolitanisms in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Ed. Tom Spencer-Walters. Memory and the Narrative Imagination in the African and Diaspora Experience. Troy; Bedford, 2011: 91-116.
  • “The Ecocritical Turn in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Writing.” Indian Journal of Ecocriticism 3 (2010): 62-70.
  • “Spectacle and Subversive Laughter in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 37.3 (2010): 280-296.

Associations & Organizations

  • African Literature Association
  • Modern Language Association