Martha NdakalakoFaculty

Martha Ndakalako is an Assistant Professor of English at Gustavus Adolphus College. She specializes in contemporary Namibian literatures and feminisms, with a wider focus on African digital literatures, Black and African Feminisms, postcolonial theory, and African Studies. In her research, Ndakalako is particularly interested in unconventional feminist literatures, and the way in which these kinds of literatures innovate aesthetic and literary practices in order to circulate. These unconventional literatures include collections of women’s micro-biographies of the Namibian war, Facebook Fiction and online literary magazines, and even conventional-seeming books that come into circulation via non-traditional avenues. Her interest includes approaches to working with, preserving access to, and archiving sources and literatures that exist in online and social media spaces. She has several recent publications on Namibian Digital Literatures and feminisms, new African Diaspora literature, and has co-edited the collection African Women and their Networks of Support: Intervening Connections (2020), which has a strong focus on digital activism. She also has a chapter on Namibian digital literatures forthcoming in the third volume on Namibian literatures, Writing Namibia: Coming Home. She is currently working on a series of articles on the 2020 Namibian feminist movement, #ShutItAllDown, and Namibian feminisms more broadly. She recently concluded her term as Co-Convener of the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus and now serves on the Steering Committee.

Professor Ndakalako teaches courses on African Feminisms, Postcolonial African Literatures, Digital African Literatures, and African comics and graphic novels.

She is affiliated with the following programs: African/African Diaspora Studies; Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; and Comparative Literature. 

Courses Taught