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  • iconChirunga-Zomba, Malawi
profile

Nick Mdika Tembo

Professor, Literary Studies https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9572-9763
  • 148
    Citations
  • 7
    h-index
  • based on Google Scholar
Calculated based on number of publications stored in Pure and citations from Scopus

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

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Brief profile


  • Nick Mdika Tembo is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Malawi. His research focuses on trauma and memory studies, with particular emphasis on African life writing, genocide studies, childhood studies, child soldier narratives, and digital media. Tembo is the editor of Trauma in the Age of Social Media in Sub Saharan Africa: Narrative and Representation (2025) and co-editor of Beyond the Call of Duty and Other Stories from Africa (2011). His scholarly contributions have been widely recognised; in 2025 he received the Hogan Prize for best essay in the a/b: Auto/Biography Studies special issue Comic Lives.

Research fields of focus

No research fields of focus available

Education/Academic Qualification


  • Stellenbosch University

  • Qualification
    Doctorate (N/A)
  • Start year - Award year
    N/A - 2017
  • Address
    Matieland, ZA

  • University of Malawi

  • Qualification
    Master of Arts in Literature (N/A)
  • Start year - Award year
    N/A - 2011
  • Address
    Zomba, Southern Region, MW

Undergraduate courses


  • ENG319 - Malawian Literature
  • ENG412 - Literary Theory II
  • ENG425 - Studies in African Poetry
  • ENG426 - The European Novel
  • LCS213 - English Poetry
  • LCS222 - Classical African Novels
Filters for Research Outputs
Sustainable Development Goals
Type
Publication Year

2025

Choiceless Choices: Constructing the Female Child’s Body in Tola Rotimi Abraham’s Black Sunday

Author(s) : Dalitsani Lucy Anselmo, Nick Mdika...

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.1080/23277408.2025.2551992

Bury my bones, but keep my words: Chinua Achebe remembered

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.1108/JHASS-07-2025-0123

“A god of justice?” Evil and the framing of suffering in Kopano Matlwa’s Period Pain

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.1080/21674736.2025.2548703

Framing (construction) Criminology Political science Psychology Philosophy

Guilty on the innocent side: evil subjectivity in two eastern african child soldier memoirs

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.1080/02533952.2025.2469997

Criminology Political science Psychology Epistemology Philosophy

Confronting Apartheid's Revenants: Trevor Noah's Born a Crime and/as Traumedy

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : book-chapter

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.4324/9781003608752-3

Sociology Criminology Gender studies Art History

Promise of the Timothy Dow Adams Award to a Global South Scholar: A 2016 Timothy Dow Adams Award Recipient

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2025, doi: 10.1080/08989575.2025.2490370

Economics Philosophy Engineering Management

2024

Girls at War, Girls in War: Three Female African Child Soldier Narratives

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2024, doi: 10.3366/ircl.2024.0580

Sociology Political science Psychology Narrative Gender studies

Framing Eastern African Precarious Mobilities

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : book-chapter

Publication Year: 2024, doi: 10.4324/9781032718552-3

Mobilities Framing (construction) Sociology Geography Archaeology

A Companion to African Rhetoric

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2024, doi: 10.1093/afraf/adad027

Sociology Political science Philosophy History Media studies

Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi: Reppin’ the Flames

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2024, doi: 10.1080/1013929X.2024.2325779

Sociology

Women, political violence, and the production of fear in Malawian social media texts

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2024, doi: 10.1080/14616742.2023.2298217

Gatekeeping Sociology Political science Social science Power (physics)

2022

Space, Time and the Ethics of Graphic Wit(h)nessing: Rupert Bazambanza’s Smile through the Tears

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2022, doi: 10.1080/23277408.2022.2096978

Sociology Political science Literature Art Philosophy

Politics of Memorialisation in a Rwandan Witness Memoir: Marie Béatrice Umutesi’s Surviving the Slaughter

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2022, doi: 10.1080/10131752.2022.2157999

Trial by ordeal Historiography Politics of memory Sociology Political science

Confronting Apartheid’s Revenants: Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and/as Traumedy

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2022, doi: 10.1080/08989575.2022.2135241

Comedy Sociology Political science Psychology Narrative

2020

Challenging Androcentric Conceptions of Nationalism: Reimagining Female Agency in Maaza Mengiste's Beneath the Lion's Gaze

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2020, doi: 10.1080/18125441.2020.1780300

Emperor Sociology Political science Social science Narrative

2019

Troubling frames: Zapiro’s iconography on Oscar Pistorius as traumics

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2019, doi: 10.1080/02589001.2019.1657230

Insult Cartoonist Emblem HERO Allegory

Reframing migrant identities: Namelessness and impersonation in Dinaw Mengestu’s All Our Names

Author(s) : Nick M. Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2019, doi: 10.4102/lit.v40i1.1581

Psychology Social psychology History Genealogy Cognitive reframing

“Made of Sterner Stuff”: Female Agency and Resilience in Nadifa Mohamed’s The Orchard of Lost Souls

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2019, doi: 10.1080/02564718.2019.1657278

Injustice Sociology Political science Social science Narrative

2017

Reading the Trauma of Internally Displaced Identities in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Waiting

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2017, doi: 10.1080/23277408.2017.1393251

Internally displaced person Displaced person Forced migration Displaced workers Computer science

Katabasis, adult betrayals and liminal identities in China Keitetsi’s Child Soldier: Fighting for My Life

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2017, doi: 10.1080/02533952.2017.1387847

Cruelty Betrayal Portrait Scapegoat Sociology

Reduced to Rubbish: Trauma and Migrant Identities in Cristina Ali Farah's Little Mother

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2017, doi: 10.1080/18125441.2017.1304438

Trope (literature) Somali Depiction Homeland Sociology

Unhomeliness, Unending Phobias and Liminality in Senait Mehari’s Heart of Fire

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2017, doi: 10.4102/lit.v38i1.1292

Depiction Phobias Sociology Criminology Psychiatry

2014

Traumatic Memory and ‘Scriptotherapy’ in Malawian Poetry: The Case of Bright Molande's Seasons

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2014, doi: 10.1080/10131752.2014.909003

Argument (complex analysis) Structural Violence Medicine Political science Literature

2012

Beyond the dark veil: Hope and despair in Bright Molande's Seasons

Author(s) : Nick Mdika Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2012, doi: 10.1080/08893675.2012.654942

Dictatorship Sociology Political science Psychology Literature

2004

Stuck in Napolo's rut: Chimombo's The Wrath of Napolo

Author(s) : Mdika N Tembo

Research output : journal-article

Publication Year: 2004, doi: 10.4314/jh.v16i1.6299

Geography Art Archaeology Rut

Awards

Professional Services

Funding and grants acquired

  • Urban Connections in African Popular Imaginaries (UCAPI)

  • Type
    Award
  • Period
    2017 - 2018
  • Funder
    Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
    New York, New York, US

  • Claude Ake Visiting Chair

  • Type
    Award
  • Period
    2024 - 2024
  • Funder
    Nordic Africa Institute
    Uppsala, Uppsala, SE
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