Nikitta Adjirakor is an African literary scholar. She completed her PhD at the University of Bayreuth, Germany in 2020. Her thesis explored hip-hop and spoken word poetry as aesthetic practices in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania through aspects of language, gender and digitalisation. Her research interests lie in Swahili literature and culture, African popular culture, digital literature, aesthetics, poetry and poetics and world literature.

Nikitta Adjirakor, University of Bayreuth

African Language Literature and the Paradigm of World Literature

This seminar was given by Nikitta Adjirakor (University of Bayreuth) as part of the MULOSIGE webinar series.

In the digital literary space, there is a steadily emerging literary system and network of African language literatures, from blogs to virtual festivals and online literary marketplaces. Central to these patterns of production and consumption is the digital space that affords African language literatures the visibility to inhabit and produce new worlds. While often marginalized in discussions on world literature, African language literatures reveal circuits of transnational production that broaden the paradigm of world literature. In this presentation, using examples from different digital African language literatures, Adjirakor traces the worlds these literatures showcase.