Vincent R. Ogoti
Assistant Professor of English and Global Black Studies
Contact
Department of English
Office: 811 Strode; Fall 2026 Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2pm-4pm.
Email: vogoti@clemson.edu
Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison (2023); M.A., University of Notre Dame (2017)
Research Interests
Subjectivity, Biopolitics, and Postcoloniality; Literature and Medicine; Drama and Theater; Migration and Literature; Sound and Literature, Science Fiction and Afrofutures.
Dr. Vincent R. Ogoti is an Assistant Professor, jointly appointed in the English and Interdisciplinary Studies departments. He was a Mellon Public Humanities Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Humanities, a Storytelling Fellow at MYArts, the inaugural African Studies Program Fellow at UW-Madison, and a Fulbright Fellow at Yale University. He is a scholar of biopolitics, subjectivity, and postcoloniality with a primary emphasis on African, African American, and Caribbean literature and culture. His current book project focuses on "Literature, Medicine, and the Postcolonial Hospital." The book theorizes the postcolonial hospital as a category of literary analysis through Yusuf K. Dawood’s Kenyan hospital novels. It argues that the postcolonial state reconstituted colonial racial hierarchy through new regimes of access, professional authority, and national belonging, and that the hospital gave these reconfigured relations institutional and bodily form. Dr. Ogoti has published peer-reviewed articles on African and Caribbean drama, visual cultures, sound and literature, and migration and the Black Atlantic. He is also a playwright and has authored and co-produced four plays, including A Shadow in the Sun and Echoes of Green.
Awards
Lightsey Fellowship (Clemson University); Andrew W. Mellon Public Humanities Fellowship (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Fulbright Fellowship (Yale University);Ebrahim Hussein Fellowship for Research in African Expressive Cultures (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Joan B. Kroc Fellowship (University of Notre Dame); Idol-South Award (Clemson University)
Selected Professional Works
Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Published)
“ Traveling Images: Photography and the Poetics of Visual Peace in Kenya .” Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, 2026.
“ Specters of the Self: Anxiety, Political Subjectivity, and Ebrahim Hussein's Mashetani.” Journal of African Literature Association, 2026.
“ Narrating Fractures: Teaching Notes on Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing .” Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, vol. 13 (2), 2025, pp.247-262.
“ Unbreakable Bodies: The Maji Maji Rebellion and Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjeketile .” Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society, vol. 56, no. 2, 2025, pp. 364–389.
“ The Poetics of Second Liberation: Revisiting Aimé Césaire’s King Christophe .” Nordic Journal of African Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, 2024, pp. 203-218.
“ Voicing Afro-Modernity: How Black Atlantic Audiobooks Speak Back. ” Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 35, no. 4, 2023, pp. 392-407. (With Reginald Royston)
“ Soundscape and Narrative Dynamics in Chinelo Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees.” Journal of the African Literature Association, vol. 13, no. 3, 2019, pp. 291-305.
Creative Works (Published)
Echoes of Green: A Play, Spotlight Publishers (EA) Limited, 2025.
A Shadow in the Sun: A Play, premiered at the University of Nairobi in August 2019 (Pearls Publishers Limited, 2019).
Creative Works (In Production)
Masks for the Soul: A Play (forthcoming).
