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The German Research Foundation has accepted PD Dr. Gilbert Shang Ndi from the University of Bayreuth (UBT) into the Heisenberg Program. He conducts research on networks of tropical coloniality in African and Latin American literature and is a member of the Excellence Cluster Africa Multiple at UBT.
The Heisenberg Program is open to scientists who have already met the prerequisites to be appointed to a permanent professorship. It allows researchers to continue their high-profile projects at a location of their choice and to further enhance their scientific reputation, thus preparing them for a scientific leadership position within up to five years. Shang Ndi has chosen UBT as the place to implement his research projects. Since June 2017, he has also been a member of the Young College of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Between September 2022 and March 2023, he temporarily led the Chair of Romance Studies/Comparative Literature at UBT. As a postdoctoral fellow of the Excellence Cluster, he researched UNESCO World Heritage sites in Africa and South America. From 2017 to 2019, he was a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. After completing his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Yaoundé (Cameroon), he continued to Bayreuth (Germany) for his doctorate and subsequently his Habilitation.
His research topic is: "Of Railroads and Mines: Networks of Tropical Coloniality in African and Latin American Literary Imaginations." Background is his assumption that mining and railroads are exemplary of the (mis)encounters of local communities with Western modernity, globalization, and the socio-cultural and economic dynamics of postcolonial phenomena. Therefore, Ndi examines re-interpretations of railroad and mining motifs by postcolonial authors in Africa and Latin America: "They are crucial for questioning Western development projects and revealing the underside of modernity as experienced by colonized individuals and societies."
This study compiles a collection of selected literary texts from Latin America and Africa about mines and railroads. The regions focused on in this study are Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "These regions have a long tradition of literary production that deals with the infrastructural and imaginary inscriptions of railroads and mines in colonial and postcolonial texts," explains Shang Ndi. Along with text analysis, he intends to conduct field research to consult archives on mining history and railroad construction in parts of the studied areas.
PD Dr. Gilbert Ndi Shang
Chair of Romance Literary Studies and Comparative Literature with a special focus on Africa
University of Bayreuth
Email: Ndi Shang ndishang@yahoo.co.uk
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