At the Heart of Intercultural Dialogue

Gilbert Shang Ndi hails from Cameroon, where he completed his studies in Bilingual Letters and Commonwealth Literature at the University of Yaoundé 1. In 2010, he came to the University of Bayreuth’s International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) to pursue his doctorate in Comparative Literature. He subsequently conducted research as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and as a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, focusing on “Bodies in (Con)texts: Intersections of Corporeality in the Novels of Gabriel García Márquez and Sony Labou Tansi.” Since June 2017, he has also been a member of the Young Academy of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. When the University of Bayreuth was awarded the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence in 2019, Shang Ndi returned to UBT as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the cluster and completed his habilitation. Together with Prof. Dr Ute Fendler from the Cluster of Excellence, he led a research project on UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa and South America. Between September 2022 and March 2023, he temporarily headed the Chair of Romance Studies/Comparative Literature at UBT.

Now, as part of the Heisenberg Programme, Shang Ndi has chosen UBT as the place to pursue his research on networks of tropical coloniality in African and Latin American literature. Over the course of up to five years, he will prepare for a leadership position in academia.

He chose UBT because of its well-established and internationally renowned research profile in African Studies. “Bayreuth is the place to be when you are researching African Studies,” says Shang Ndi. He also integrates the Latin American perspective into his work, aiming to build a bridge between continents: “In the field of Comparative Literature, one is at the heart of a dialogue between different cultures and continents. I believe that Bayreuth, with its expertise in African Studies and its focus on literary research, is an excellent hub for this endeavour,” says Shang Ndi. From this hub, he aims to contribute to intercontinental understanding between Africa, Latin America, and Europe.

“The fascinating aspect of Comparative Literature is that it brings together different textualities—from classical literary texts to cinema and pop culture. This makes the field a significant meeting point for diverse cultures and textualities, placing Comparative Literature at the heart of intercultural dialogue,” says Shang Ndi.