Cilas Kemedjio

Full Professor · University of Rochester

Cilas Kemedjio is a Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Rochester. His research focuses on the memory of slavery, the decolonization of the theoretical frameworks of postcolonial literatures, the representation of the body, "anthropological mutilation," and critical investigations of humanitarian interventions in Africa, particularly in literary and cultural productions. Kemedjio has published books on Maryse Condé, Édouard Glissant, and Mongo Beti. His recent publications include “Maryse Condé: A Consciousness of the Black World,” translated from French by Nadrah Mohammed, in Yale French Studies, 140 (2021), a special issue on Maryse Condé, pp. 48-65; “Migration, Literary Imagination, and Mirages in the Francophone Text: Paths to Anthropological Mutilation” in *A Companion to African Literatures*, edited by Olankule George (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2021, pp. 333-349); “The Economy of Humanitarianism” in *The Oxford Handbook of the Economy of Cameroon*, edited by Célestin Monga (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 731-752). Kemedjio, along with Cecelia Lynch, co-edited *“Who Gives to Whom”: Reframing Africa in the Humanitarian Imaginary* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). He is currently preparing a manuscript on the "Humanitarian Misunderstanding."