Dr. Michelle Louise Clarke
Dr. Michelle Louise Clarke
Short Bio
Dr. Michelle Louise Clarke is a researcher working at the intersections of African literature, postcolonial studies, cultural theory and creative methodologies. Her research focuses on African speculative genres (including science fiction, magical realism, African Futurism and other forms of speculation), and explores literary genres as ways of producing knowledge, questioning dominant realities and imagining alternative futures. She completed her PhD at SOAS University of London, where her research examined ecocritical discourse in Anglo-African speculative fiction and its relationship to environmental policy. She developed this approach in her postdoctoral position at the University of Bayreuth through the ERC-funded project Philosophy and Genre, where her individual project, Making Genre into Method: African Speculative Fictions and Environmental Futures, examined speculative fiction as a form of philosophical and critical practice.
More recently, her work has also focused on artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies, bringing her longstanding interest in speculation and genre into dialogue with Critical AI Studies. She is co-founder of Beyond the Algorithm, an interdisciplinary group connecting humanities and data-driven sciences. She has held a Visiting Fellowship at Roehampton University, London, developing creative research practices (zine-making and visual manifestos) as methodologies to engage with emerging technologies. More on her work is available at michellelouiseclarke.wordpress.com.
Selected Publications
- Clarke, M. L. (2019). The Speculative Turn in African Literature (Editorial). Vector: Journal of the British Science Fiction Association, 289.
- Clarke, M. L. Black Atlantic Futurism, Toxic Discourses and Decolonising the Anthropocene in Nnedi Okorafor’s The Book of Phoenix. African Literature Today, 38.
Short Bio
Dr. Michelle Louise Clarke is a researcher working at the intersections of African literature, postcolonial studies, cultural theory and creative methodologies. Her research focuses on African speculative genres (including science fiction, magical realism, African Futurism and other forms of speculation), and explores literary genres as ways of producing knowledge, questioning dominant realities and imagining alternative futures. She completed her PhD at SOAS University of London, where her research examined ecocritical discourse in Anglo-African speculative fiction and its relationship to environmental policy. She developed this approach in her postdoctoral position at the University of Bayreuth through the ERC-funded project Philosophy and Genre, where her individual project, Making Genre into Method: African Speculative Fictions and Environmental Futures, examined speculative fiction as a form of philosophical and critical practice.
More recently, her work has also focused on artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies, bringing her longstanding interest in speculation and genre into dialogue with Critical AI Studies. She is co-founder of Beyond the Algorithm, an interdisciplinary group connecting humanities and data-driven sciences. She has held a Visiting Fellowship at Roehampton University, London, developing creative research practices (zine-making and visual manifestos) as methodologies to engage with emerging technologies. More on her work is available at michellelouiseclarke.wordpress.com.
Selected Publications
- Clarke, M. L. (2019). The Speculative Turn in African Literature (Editorial). Vector: Journal of the British Science Fiction Association, 289.
- Clarke, M. L. Black Atlantic Futurism, Toxic Discourses and Decolonising the Anthropocene in Nnedi Okorafor’s The Book of Phoenix. African Literature Today, 38.
Keywords: Africa, African literature, artificial intelligence, genre, postcolonial studies, speculative fiction