Scholar of African literature, queer and trans theory, and the politics of sex and gender in the Global South
Kerry Manzo, PhD
(he, él)
Now Out from Michigan State University Press
Queer Contiguities of Nigerian Literature
Queer Contiguities of Nigerian Literature explores how normative ideas of sex and gender have shaped the development of Nigerian literature. Tracing this influence from the rise of mid-twentieth-century modernist writing to the contemporary appearance of LGBTQIA literature, Kerry Manzo presents a new framework for understanding Nigerian literature, one in which sexuality and gender—or more specifically, their containment through national discourses of heteronormativity in colonial and postcolonial Nigeria—are central to its problematics and poetics. Drawing on interdisciplinary research and archival materials, including institutional records, personal letters, small publications, and other ephemera, Manzo illuminates the historical and material conditions that have placed limitations on the literary representation of women and sexual minorities and shaped the national masculine tradition of letters.
African Literature
My work in African literature focuses on Nigerian literary history — how the institutions, networks, and ideologies of the colonial and postcolonial periods shaped which writers were published, celebrated, and taught, and which were not. I am particularly interested in the Mbari Club and its legacy, the role of international publishers like Heinemann in canonizing certain voices while marginalizing others, and the flourishing of contemporary LGBTQIA Nigerian fiction against a backdrop of severe legal repression.
Global South Feminisms
I approach Global South feminisms as both a scholarly framework and a political commitment. My work draws on feminist scholars and activists writing from Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and their diasporas to think about how gender, sexuality, and colonial power intersect in ways that Euro-American feminist frameworks often miss or distort. I am especially interested in how women writers in the Global South have theorized their own conditions — in fiction, memoir, and criticism — rather than waiting to be theorized about.
Queer & Trans Theory
My engagement with queer and trans theory draws on the full global range of these frameworks — not only their Euro-American iterations but the queer and trans theory being produced by scholars, writers, and activists across Africa, South Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and their diasporas. I use these tools to explore sexual and gender diversity from a decolonial perspective, treating the Global South not as a test case for Western theory but as a generative site of theoretical production in its own right.
Recent & Upcoming Talks
Upcoming
“Lesbian Specters and Speculations,” African Literature Association Conference — Knoxville, TN — May 2026
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Author Meets Critics Queer African Studies Association / African Studies Association Conference — New Orleans, LA — December 2026
Recent
Queer Contiguities of Nigerian Literature — Book Launch Purchase College, SUNY — April 1, 2026
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"The Body of/and the Text: Transgender Life Writing as Decolonial Knowledge Production," International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, University of Auckland — 2025
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Achebe Redivivus, British Academy Conferences & All Souls College, University of Oxford — 2025