Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
I was appointed to the University in 2013 as Lecturer in Postcolonial Writing (20th/21st Century). In 2017 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Writing and, as of 1 August 2019, am Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures.
My research considers contemporary African writing in the context of transnational, world and global literary production. I am particularly interested in the ways in which literary writing contributes to, subverts and is shaped by a broader, a priori image of 'Africa' circulating in a global imaginary, as well as the varied and contested registrations of this process across differing scales of expression and geography. To date, I have published three monographs: Contemporary African Literature in English: Global Locations, Postcolonial Identifications (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Writing Spatiality in West Africa: Colonial Legacies in the Anglophone/Francophone Novel (Boydell and Brewer, 2018 - part of the African Articulations series) and Contingent Canons: African Literature and the Politics of Location (Cambridge University Press, 2018 - part of the Elements series).
I am at present PI on a five-year project titled 'Literary Activism in sub-Saharan Africa: Commons, Publics and Networks of Practice', funded by a European Research Commission Starting Grant, part of the 'excellent science' pillar of Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme. This stems from a number of years of project-based work with literary collectives on the African continent, based in countries including Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda and Kenya. I have also recently completed or am near completing collaborative projects on literary translation, the creative writing workshop as decolonial praxis, digital narrative production and South-South literary networks.
From 2014 to 2016, I served as the Director for the now-defunct Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Societies at the University of Bristol, and I am currently Director of the Centre for Black Humanities. Since 2020, I have served as co-lead for the Research and Civic Engagement workstream of the University's Anti-Racism Steering Group. I am also on the board of the Bristol Poetry Institute, Bristol Ideas, Bibliothèque 1949 (Abidjan), a trustee for Literature Works and a member of the Engagement Board for the Temple Quarter project. From 2017-20, I was theme lead for Global Citizenship for the Bristol Futures initiative. I am particularly intereted in the possibilities and pitfalls of decolonial knowledge production with respect to pedagogy and UK HE more broadly.
Teaching
I would welcome applications from students working on any area of African literary studies or world literatures. I especially welcome applications which consider the intersection of literary criticism and material cultures, as well as those which explore the relationship between late capitalism, literary production and form. I am happy to consider projects which seek to re-conceptualise world literary topographies and those which seek to expand upon the orthodoxies of postcolonial criticism.
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Network
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LITCOM: Literary Activism in sub-Saharan Africa: Commons, Publics and Networks of Practice
1/01/20 → 31/12/24
Project: Research, Parent
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LITCOM: Literary Activism in sub-Saharan Africa: Commons, Publics and Networks of Practice
1/01/20 → 31/12/24
Project: Research
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Literary Translation Workshops: Evaluating Social Impact and Global Possibilities
1/07/20 → 30/04/22
Project: Research
Research output
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Introduction: Literary Activism in 21st Century Africa
Bush, R. A. L., Krishnan, M. & Wallis, K., 11 Jul 2021, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies. 7, 1-2, p. 1-9 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Small Magazines in Africa: Ecologies and Genealogies
Ouma, C. & Krishnan, M., 9 Sep 2021, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Social Dynamics. 47, 2, p. 193-209 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
3 Citations (Scopus) -
What Was African Fiction? A Roundtable on Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity and Ownership
Krishnan, M., 3 Sep 2021, In: The Black Scholar. 51, 3, p. 39 71 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate (Academic Journal)
Activities
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Bristol Poetry Institute Annual Reading: Claudia Rankine in Conversation with Vanessa Kisuule
Rebecca Kosick (Organiser) & Madhu Krishnan (Organiser)
18 Nov 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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British Colonial Periodicals
Madhu Krishnan (Invited speaker)
3 Jul 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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University of Plymouth, Department of English, Seminar Series
Madhu Krishnan (Invited speaker)
12 Feb 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk