African Languages, Literatures and Cultures Network
Heri Tukijuana Kuliko Tukitupana | Better That We Know One Another Than That We Abandon One Another
This network ran from 2022 to July 2025.
Heri Tukijuana Kuliko Tukitupana
Better That We Know One Another Than That We Abandon One Another
The African Languages, Literatures and Cultures TORCH Network offered an interdisciplinary meeting space for a wide range of perspectives and projects engaging with African cultures, languages and literatures at the University of Oxford and beyond. It complemented the African Studies Centre, reaching across the University and departments. It aimed to bring together scholars based at institutions across the UK, to raise the status of African humanities and scholarship nationally.
We sought to foster discussions, debates and collaborations, bridging the divides of language, discipline and region, and moving beyond a focus on Anglophone countries and literatures. We brought together African intellectual and cultural history, philosophy, performance, film and theatre studies, visual arts, literature studies, and other fields related to African arts and creativity.
We also sought to centre African voices, histories, and ways of knowing in contemporary debates about African Studies and the academy.
Emphasising in particular the contributions of African scholars and early-career researchers, in the last two years we organised research seminars, book launches, readings groups (with readings circulated in advance) workshops and conferences. Founding members of the network came from the disciplines of Modern Languages, African Studies and English Literature and we welcomed participants from across the University and beyond.
Network Leads:
Dr Dorothée Boulanger - Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Modern Languages, Jesus College
Dr Rachel Taylor - Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Junior Research Fellow, Jesus College
Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu - Junior Research Fellow in African and Comparative Literature, St Anne's College
Prof. Elleke Boehmer - Professor of World Literature in the English Faculty
You can also follow us on Twitter @AfCulturesOx.
Please let us know any questions to afculturesox@torch.ox.ac.uk.
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