Ruth S. Wenske

Ruth S. Wenske

Ruth S. Wenske
Dr.
Ruth
S.
Wenske
Contemporary African literature
ruth.wenske@mail.huji.ac.il

Contemporary African literature, particularly Anglophone literature and Realism
Postcolonial Theory and World Literature
Self-writing and the construction of collective identities through literary production
Critical Pedagogy, education, and conceptions of literacy in Africa
Oral culture as part of the educational system, esp. in the digital age
Discourse Ecologies: textual representations in the public sphere

 

Current Projects: 

Evaluating Education in Africa between Theory and Practice: A Case Study of Uganda. This project examines evaluations of the educational system in Uganda over the last decade through a dual perspective of discursive analysis and critical pedagogy.

Literature and Literacy as Modes of Education: an African Literary Perspective. This project approaches the duality of literacy/literature through the exchange between literary theory and educational practice, by examining the ways in which textual representations relate to oral practices in the public sphere – from novels to spoken word poetry to classroom decorations

Curriculum Vitae: 

Education

  • 2017-2018: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Glocal International Development Program / Davis Institute for International Relations, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

  • 2016: Ph.D. in English Language and Literature, University of Haifa. Dissertation title: “"Maybe We Are Not Just Failing": Unknowability in the Self-Writing of African Realism.”

  • 2008: M.A. in English Language and Literature, University of Haifa. Thesis title: "Balancing Dualities into a New World: Tradition and Change in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God."

Publications

Articles or a non-academic audience:

In preparation:

  • Book manuscript: Aesthetics of Unknowability: African Self-Writing Between Fiction and Reference

  • With Medadi Ssentanda. "Exploring the History of Teaching English in Uganda: Literacy and Local Languages in the Classroom Pre-1997."

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alumni