Aliko Songolo

Credentials: Professor Emeritus

Aliko Songolo’s research and teaching interests focus on francophone literatures of Africa and the Caribbean, and on francophone cinemas of Africa and Québec. He has published a monograph (Aimé Césaire: une poétique de la découverte, 1985), two co-edited volumes (Twenty-five Years After Dakar and Fourah Bay: The Growth of African Literature, 1998 and Atlantic Cross-Currents/Transatlantiques, 2001), and was Associate Editor of the highly acclaimed five-volume New Encyclopedia of Africa (2008). He has also edited special issues of two eminent journals in his field, French Review (1982) and Présence Francophone (2003), and published numerous articles. His current research projects investigate the question of national cinema in Québec and Francophone Africa, and postcoloniality in the wake of the Négritude movement. He was recently named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of National Education.  At UW-Madison, Aliko Songolo has served as Chair of African Languages and Literature (now African Cultural Studies), and as Chair of the Department of French & Italian.  In addition, he has directed the African Studies Program at UW-Madison, and was Associate Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of California-Irvine before moving to Wisconsin. He is currently Co-Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary French Studies and Senior Adviser to the Vice-Provost for Globalization.  He chaired the Modern Language Association’s African Literature Division (2002), and its Division of Francophone Literatures and Cultures (2009), and was twice President of the African Literature Association.