US Mission welcomes Yale professor with Nigerian roots to UNILAG

Dr. Cajetan Iheka, a Yale University professor of English with Nigerian roots, has begun a 10-month Fulbright appointment at the University of Lagos.

The United States Mission said Iheka started the appointment on Aug. 20. At UNILAG, he will lead seminars and training for early-career faculty and postgraduate students. He will also help develop courses, contribute to graduate curriculum redesign, and mentor faculty through teaching and publishing workshops.

Iheka directs Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center, chairs its Council on African Studies, heads the Yale Africa Initiative, and serves as editor-in-chief of African Studies Review. His academic specialties include African and Caribbean literatures, ecocriticism, ecomedia, postcolonial literatures and world literatures.

He has authored or edited seven books, including Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature and African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics. He also edited Teaching Postcolonial Environmental Literature and Media and coedited works on African migration narratives and African literary intellectual traditions.

The mission said more than 1,200 Fulbright scholars have worked in Nigeria since 1960. Many now hold leadership positions in government and public, private and international institutions.