Nelson Sindze Wembe

Longing and Belonging in Black African Diasporic Literature written in French and Spanish

My research focuses on the analyze of the concepts of longing and belonging in black diasporic literature written in French and Spanish. I will focus on the books written by authors like Inongo Vi Makome, Alain Mabanckou, Roukhaya Diallo, Lucia Mbomio… in order to see how new migrants’ identities are shaped and how migrants and their descendants resolve the contradictions that emerge from the encounter of two cultures. My project will also interrogate the belonging of literature written by the descendants of migrants that is often quickly categorized as black African literature but that actually belongs to the national literature of the countries they are living in since they hold the nationality of those countries. I will therefore show how these writings participate in the coloration of the national European literature and have contributed to the creation of terminologies such as: afropean or “afroespañol”.

Research interests
  • Diasporic literature
  • Black African literature
  • Migrancy literature
  • Comparative literature
  • Migrant and diasporic identities
  • Decolonization
  • Afropean
Vita
  • 2020
    Member of Research Group Amnesia Imperial, Estudios postcoloniales hipananófonos.
  • 2011-2012
    M.A. In Applied Languages, University of Lleida, Spain.
  • 2014
    Member of the Research Group MIGRA: Data base of Migrants writers in Iberian Languages, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
  • 2010-2011
    M.A. In Ibero-American and African Hispanic Literature, University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon.
  • 2007-2010
    B.A. in Trilingual Phylology (French-English-Spanish), University of Dschang, Cameroon.
Publications
Talks, Workshops, and Events
  • 2023
    Moderation of the panel discussion Living with Contradictions as a Mixed-Race Person. With Kwanza Muși Dos Santos, Deborah Ekoka und Samia Mohammed. Kukoon Kulturzentrum Bremen. 16.11.2023.
  • 2023
    Lecture The Allures and Pitfalls of Hashtag Acitivism with Dr. Deborah Nyangulu (RTG Contradiction Studies) and Dr. Daria Dergacheva (ZeMKI), 16.05.2023, University Bremen.
  • 2023
    Podiumsdiskussion (Breaking) Barriers in Academia: Mapping the Field with Sonja Drobnic (SOCIUM, U Bremen), Dora Simunovic (BIGSSS, U Bremen), Nelson Sindze Wembe (RTG Contradiction Studies & BIGSSS U Bremen) & Lisa Spanka (Equal Opportunities Office, U Bremen). Organized by BIGSSS and RTG Contradiction Studies, 16.03.2023, University Bremen.
  • 2021
    Online-Talk Literatura negroafricana y la cuestión de afrodescendencia en españa in the CirculoEHBA directed by JM Persánch from the university of Oregon (USA), 03/2021. Accessible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7QXB90hv1k
  • 2014
    Jaca. Participation with Poster presentation at the First doctoral days organised by CAMPUSIBERUS, 03.07.2014-04.07.2014.
  • 2014
    Participation with communication to the XX symposium of SELGYC Communication title: La literatura negroafricana de la inmigración: particularidades de una nueva dinámicadel compromiso literario de África negra, 02.09.2014-04.09.2014 at the University Santiago de Compostela.
  • 2015
    Participation with communication at the I encounter of young researchers of SELGYC
    Communication presented: Oralidad e intertextualidad en la literatura negroafricana de la diáspora actual, 29.10.2015-30.10.2015.
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke
every day

“Living in contradictions is what we experience every day. Why do we know so little about it?”

Gisela Febel
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka
Bhabha on enlightenment and coloniality

“Homi Bhabha says about the contradiction between the ideals of the enlightenment, claims to democracy and solidarity and simultaneous colonization and ongoing coloniality: ‘That ideological tension, visible in the history of the West as a despotic power, at the very moment of the birth of democracy and modernity, has not been adequately written in a contradictory and contrapuntal discourse of tradition.’”

Kerstin Knopf
earthing

“Geography as a discipline stands for a certain worlding, if not earthing, of contradiction, in both theoretical and pracitcal respect.”

Julia Lossau