Phyllis Taoua, Professor in the Department of French & Italian, has been elected to serve as Vice President of the African Literature Association.
The largest association of its kind, the African Literature Association is an independent non-profit professional society open to scholars, teachers and writers from every country. It exists primarily to facilitate the attempts of a world-wide audience to appreciate the efforts of African writers and artists. It was founded in 1974 and is headquartered at Spelman College in Atlanta.
The election results were announced at the recent annual meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Taoua will serve as Vice President for a one-year term, 2025-2026, then become the association’s President for a one-year term and then become the conference convener of the annual meeting the following year.
Taoua teaches courses on African literature and cinema, Critical Theory, Global Africa, Politics of Protest in Africa and the Diaspora, and Human Rights Across Contexts. She is the author of more than 60 publications including African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Forms of Protest: Anti-Colonialism and Avant-Gardes in Africa, the Caribbean and France (Heinemann, 2002).
She was previously elected to the African Literature Association’s Executive Committee and has served on the MLA Executive Committee of the Forum on African Languages, Literatures and Cultures. She currently serves on the Board of Editors of the Journal of African Literature Association.
“I am honored to serve the association in this capacity,” Taoua said. “I attended my first ALA conference in East Lansing, Michigan, in 1997 when I was in my first year as an assistant professor at Boston University. Bringing together creatives and scholars from across Africa and the diaspora has become a vital ALA tradition, which I will endeavor to continue.”