Henry Ajumeze

I am a Lecturer in Contemporary Literature in the School of English, Media and Creative Arts. I joined the University of Galway in 2024, having previously taught at the University of Manchester in the UK and Bowen University in Nigeria. I describe myself as a scholar-activist to reflect my interest in a range of critical practices on ecology and environmentalism, climate activism, decolonialisation, and indigenous epistemes and textual practices. I am interested in how these things are reflected in poetry, novels, performances, films, or posts in the cybersphere.

I hold a PhD from the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. My research has received funding from the University of Cape Town Postgraduate School (South Africa); the African Humanities Postdoctoral Programme under the American Council of Learned Societies (USA); the Social Science Research Council (USA); the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI); and the Ivan Karp Fellowship, jointly awarded by the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and Emory University (USA).

I sit on the editorial board of the book series Transnational Theatre Histories.

My research focuses on the Environmental Humanities of the Global South; Postcolonial Literature, World Literature, and Energy and Blue Humanities.

As a specialist in the Environmental Humanities of the South, my research has developed along two pathways: energy humanities and water studies, which shape my forthcoming monograph, Dialogue Between Oil and Water in the Niger Delta, under contract with the Routledge Series in Literature and Environment. My new research on critical animal studies takes a decolonial and posthumanist approach to explore depictions of nonhuman animals in Postcolonial Literature and cultures.

Teaching

I currently teach the following modules:

Contemporary Literature

Postcolonial Literature

World Literature