Dr Joanne R. Davis
Joanne Ruth Davis is an African literary theorist. Her book on the English works of 19th century African intellectual Tiyo Soga Tiyo Soga: A Literary History won the Hiddingh-Currie Award 2019. She has published other academic papers on Soga, as well as African and African American women's literature, archival research and the odd poem. She lives in London with her young family.
Tiyo Soga: A Literary History
Tiyo Soga: A Literary History was published in 2018. It was launched at Obz Books in Cape Town in August 2018 , at SOAS in London in November 2018 and at the Steve Biko Foundation in Ginsberg in April 2019 .
Tiyo Soga: A Literary History is based on my PhD, carefully rewritten to include information I accessed after the submission of the thesis. My interest in the Reverend Tiyo Zisani Soga was spurred by Cliff Dikeni, the lecturer of my Xhosa I (Standard) Literature class at UCT, who thought that Soga should have been on the syllabus. Cliff described Soga as the 'next big thing' in South African literary theory and mentioned that our class should say we heard it first in Cliff's class. However, as I worked with African post-colonial and protest literatures in English, Xhosa and French, I found that very little information on Soga had been published or produced. I collected everything I found and kept returning to it until there was enough material and I had enough opinions on it for a PhD... the research for my thesis uncovered a wealth of latent materials in archives across South Africa and the UK, which show Soga as a polyglot intellectual luminary. They are included as appendices in this book to enable the work of future Soga scholarship.
The rest, as they say, is history. Literary, South African, Southern African, theological and philosophical history. Soga's significance is global.
Academic publication, writing, talks and seminars
As well as the Tiyo Soga: A Literary History , I have published and presented a range of book chapters, journal aricles, conference papers, book reviews and some poetry. I am available for writing, talks and seminars. Please contact me at "jojiki @ gmail dot com" .