Events Calendar

Cajetan Iheka specializes in African literature, ecocriticism, ecomedia, and postcolonial literature. In addition to his role as Professor of English, he also serves as director of Yale's Whitney Humanities Center, head of the Africa Initiative at Yale,  chair of the Council on African Studies, Editor-in-Chief of African Studies Review and has authored several award winning books.

Cajetan is a true interdisciplinary scholar and teacher. His research explores how African literary texts have engaged with pressing ecological problems across the continent, from oil pollution in the Niger Delta, to ecologies of war in Somalia.  His most recent book, African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics, delivers a unique perspective on the socioecological costs of media production (think not only of the plastics and precious metals in your phones and cameras, but as well as their final destination when you ultimately discard them) while also also highlighting the resourcefulness and creativity of African media makers. Ultimately, his teaching and writing provide an opportunity for students to consider how narrative participates in human beings' relationship with the environment. It also seeks to challenge the tendency to focus primarily on humans in the conceptualization of environmental problems, and instead focuses on how African literature demonstrates the interconnection and ‘proximity’ of human and nonhuman beings.  With the current political climate marked by fear and the unknown, he writes that "literature can help us with the distribution of solitude and provide solace necessary for coping with the exigencies of today’s world, even as its imaginary possibilities allow the cultivation of hope amidst the allure of despair."

His colleagues at Yale describe his "creative vision", "boundary-breaking" research, and the "sense of collective good that drives much of his work".

It is an honor to welcome Cajetan to our campus. Please join us for his talk entitled "Wild Ecopedagogy and Ecological Ethics". He will address the ways that African cultural productions articulate and circulate environmental knowledge outside the confines of the formal classroom. In doing so, they illuminate non-dominant epistemologies and voices left out of mainstream paradigms, and prioritize ecosystemic thriving, beyond the individualist ethos of capitalist modernity.

Light refreshments will be offered before the talk.

Organized by the Africana Studies department with generous support from Environmental Studies, Ethical Inquiry at Carleton, and The Division of Inclusion, Equity, and Community.