Prof. Onookome Okome graduated with MA and PhD degrees from the University of Ibadan,
Ibadan, Nigeria with exemplary scholarly prowess, breaking the glass ceiling in several respects.
He earned degrees in African performance studies, Anglophone African literature and theatre;
African cinema, postcolonial theory and criticism and critical race theory.
In an exceptional academic career spanning over three decades, Okome has taught at the
University of Calabar from 1989 to 2002, and then moved to the University of Alberta, Canada
in 2002 and was promoted to full professorship cadre in 2008. His publication profile includes
the edited volume, Before I am Hanged: Ken Saro-Wiwa: Literature, Politics and Dissent ( New
Jersey: African World Press, 199), over forty academic essays on African literature and cinema,
two jointly edited books on African popular culture, Global Nollywood: An African Film
Industry (Indiana University Press, 2013) with Professor Dr. Matthias Krings of the University of
Mainz, and Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday (Routledge, New York,
2014) with Professor Stephanie Newell of the University of Sussex, UK. The latter is the
outcome of the research collaboration with Professor Stephanie Newell while he was the Visiting
Leverhulme Professor. He led the second publication from this research, “Karin Barber and the
Study of Everyday Africa” (Research in African Literatures, 43, 4, 2012).
In 2010, Okome was awarded the Alexander Humboldt Research Prize on the basis of his
excellent work with other international scholars in Germany on African popular Culture. He has
published over 30 essays on African cinema, especially Nollywood. His most recent essay on
Nollywood is the exhibition entry, “Islam et Cinema en Afrique de l’ouest.”Tresor de Islam en
Afrique. Paris: Silvania Editoriale, 2017.
Okome who is currently working on a book-length study, “Nollywood: Text, Context,
Controversy,” presently researches and teaches in the fields of African literature, African popular
cinema, postcolonial theory and criticism, critical race theory and Franz Fanon Studies. Some of
his landmark academic and professional works include the following: Newell, Stephanie, and
Onookome Okome (eds). Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday, New York:
Routledge, 2014; Krings, Matthias and Onookome Okome (eds). Global Nollywood: The
Transnational Dimensions of An African Video Film Industry, Indiana University Press, 2013;
Okome, Onookome (editor). “Africa At the Movies: West African Video Film.” Special issues on
Nollywood. Postcolonial Text. 3/1, 2007; Okome, Onookome (editor). “Nollywood: Africa
Writes.” Special issue on Nollywood. Film International. 5.4, 2004; and Okome, Onookome.
“Nollywood: Spectatorship, Audience and the Sites of Consumption” [Reprint]. The Screen
Reader: The History, Theory, and Culture of the Screen. Ed. Stephen Monteiro. Australia:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.