Lynda Gichanda Spencer is an associate professor and former Head of the Department of Literary Studies in English at Rhodes University. She holds PhD (English Studies) from Stellenbosch University.  She has also taught in the field of English and African Literary Studies at Stellenbosch University, the University of South Africa and Vista University.

 

Her research interests include contemporary women’s popular writing, popular culture in Africa, African women’s writing, Eastern African fiction, African cultural studies and transnational literatures. She is co-convenor of the African Feminisms (Afems) Conference; the principal investigator (with Minesh Dass) of Urban Connections in African Popular Imaginaries which is funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2017-2023); principal investigator (with Ashleigh Harris) Contemporary Africa Texts and Contexts: Decolonising the Archive, Genre and Method (2018-2022) funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT), and editor of The Journal of Eastern African Cultural and Literary Studies.