Research Interests

• Mobility and Literature
• Classical Music and Literature
• African Literature in English
• World Anglophone Studies / World Literature

Current Projects:

• Habilitation Thesis - Working title: “Western Art Music in Literature of the Anglophone World: Colonial Encounters, Postcolonial Mobilisations.“
• With the BCDSS: "Anglophone African Literature's Economies of Mobility: SAD and Countermobility in Selected Texts 1789–2020"
• Co-Editor of Matatu: Journal for African Literary and Cultural Studies

Email: pfalzgraf(at)uni-bonn.de

• Cluster of Excellence "Beyond Slavery and Freedom: Asymmetrical Dependencies in Pre-Modern Societies" (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies)
  PI in new application round, 2024–
  Project: "Anglophone African Literature's Economies of Mobility: Strong Asymmetrical Dependency (SAD) and Countermobility in Selected Texts 1789-2020 (RAs B, E)"
• Faculty of Arts (University of Bonn)
  Deputy Equal Opportunities Officer, 2024–
• Library Council of the Faculty of Arts (University of Bonn)
  Deputy Member, May 2024–
• Alexander v. Humboldt Foundation
  Host: Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers to Prof. Rodwell Makombe
• Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
  Treasurer, May 2019–May 2021
• German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
  Member of the selection committee, 2020
• Postgraduate Forum Postcolonial Narrations
  With Silvia Anastasijevic and Hanna Teichler: Organization of the conference "Moving Centers and Traveling Cultures", Goethe University Frankfurt, 2018.
  Chair, 2014–2015: Organization of the conference "Reading Across Cultures. New Comparative Approaches in a Globalized World", Goethe University Frankfurt, 2014.
• Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst
  Member of the selection committee for doctoral scholarships, 2018

• Saarland University
  Admission to the "Exzellenzprogramm für Wissenschaftlerinnen/Excellence Programme for Women in Academia", 2022
• Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
  Biennial Dissertation Award 2022
• Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst
  PhD scholarship, Jan. 2016–Oct. 2018
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
  Fellowship for research stays in Harare and Dar es Salaam, Oct.–Dec. 2014
• RWTH Aachen
  Friedrich-Wilhelm-Prize 2012 for Outstanding Achievement of RWTH Aachen University for my thesis
• German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) Scholarship, 2008 - 2011

Previous Semesters

• Introduction to J.M. Coetzee: Postgraduate-Seminar, University of Bonn, winter term 2025/26

• Musical Novels: Anglophone Literature and the Fugue: Postgraduate-seminar, University of Bonn, winter term 2025/26

• Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures: Lecture and Seminar, University of Bonn, summer term 2025  

• Introduction to Zimbabwean Literature in English, 1950-2000: Postgraduate -Seminar, University of Bonn, winter term 2024/25 

• European Art Music in Literatures of the Anglophone World: Postgraduate-Seminar, University of Bonn, winter term 2024/25 

• Colloquium of the IPP, July 2022 – March 2023: Co-Chair of the weekly doctoral colloquium of the IPP

• Indian Classical Music in Contemporary Literature in English: Representations of the Raag in Selected Novels by Amit Chaudhuri and Neelum Saran Gour: Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2022

•  Memories of Diversity: Diversity of Memories, with Astrid M. Fellner: Lecture, Saarland University, winter semester 2021/22

•  An Introduction to the Novels of E.M. Forster: Proseminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2021/22

•  Western Classical Music in Contemporary Anglophone Novels: Transculturality and the Fugue: Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2021

•  Between Leisure and Subversion: Urban Walkers in South African, Zimbabwean, and American Writing: Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2021

• Pianos in Strange Places: Colonial Legacies and Transcultural Mobilisations: Undergraduate seminar, winter semester 2020/21

• The Black Atlantic across the Arts: Poetry, Narrative Fiction, Music: Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, winter semester 2020/21

•  Music in Literature of the Anglophone World: Graduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2020

• West African Women’s Writing in English: Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2020

•  From Victorian Adventurers to Postcolonial Detectives: Reading Southern African Literature across Genre and Time: Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2019/20

•  Southern Africa’s Literary Urbanities: Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, winter semester 2019/20

•  Rural-Urban Mobility Dynamics in Zimbabwean Literature in English:  Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2018 

•  Transcontinental Migration in Recent African Fiction in English: Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2015/16

Talks and Panels: 

• Multiple Mobilities and Migrations in African and Afrodiasporic Literature and Media, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, July 17-18 2025
• • Talk: “Rural-Urban Migration in Two Ghanaian Novels: Benjamin The Sun by Night and Amma Darko’s The Housemaid“ 

• ACLALS Conference, University of Nairobi, July 1-5, Juli 2025 (online participation):
• • Organisation of panel “New Perspectives on Transcultural English Literatures in a Multipolar Age. The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions, including 4 talks.
  • Talk: “Introduction to The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature"
    Launch of edited volume The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions (London: Bloomsbury, 2024),
  • Laudatio Khainga Okwemba 

• Postcolonial Theories and Literatures in the 21st Century. Symposium, Univ. Mainz, October 2024.
  • Organisation of panel “The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literatures”, including 3 talks and my own contribution on the topic. 

• With Hanna Teichler: Organization of the panel stream “Transcultural Memory Studies and Postcolonial Studies. Convergences and Entanglements.“ 5th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Warsaw, July 2021.

• “Echoes of the Grand Tour in Teju Cole's Open City.” 5th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Warsaw, July 2021.

• Moderation of the reading: “Reading and discussion with Petina Gappah, author of Out of Darkness, Shining Light.” 31. GAPS Annual Members Meeting. University of Oldenburg, May 2021.

• With Astrid M. Fellner: “Andere Aufklärungen. Ozeanische Welten, Körperwissen und fluide Geschlechter.” Wissenschaftliche Tagung "Kampfbegriff 'Aufklärung'. Intellektuelle Strategien und transkulturelle Kontroversen" der AG „Aufklärungen“. Saarland University, September 2020. 

• Moderation of the panels: “Europäische Aufklärung – Transkulturell und kolonialistisch“. Wissenschaftliche Tagung "Kampfbegriff 'Aufklärung'. Intellektuelle Strategien und transkulturelle Kontroversen" der AG „Aufklärungen“. Saarland University, September 2020.

• "‘The Present is Already the Past: Simultaneity in Shimmer Chinodya’s Strife and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!“ 4th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, June 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.

• “Memory and Ocean Crossings in Selected Texts by Caryl Phillips.” 17th Conference of the Research Network International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe. University of Luxemburg, Juni 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.

• With Sophia Mehrbrey and Jonas Nesselhauf: Organisation of the Memory Studies panels entitled “Journeys and Transcultural Practices of Remembering: Anglophone, Francophone and Italophone Travel Narratives Since 1800.” 31st GAPS Annual Conference. Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.

• “‘I hold on to one bag, but I relinquish the other’: Echoes of the Grand Tour in Teju Cole’s Open City.” 31st GAPS Annual Conference. Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.

• “Literary Perspectives on Whiteness in post-2000 Zimbabwe.” 27th Conference of the African Studies Association of the UK. University of Birmingham, September 2018.

• Mit Deborah Nyangulu: Roundtable “Tropes of Urbanity: Imagining African Urban Spaces Across Media.” 42nd Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. Yale University, June 2017.              

• “The Failed City as a Space of Transnational Movement and Transcultural Encounters:  NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names.” 16th Triennial EACLALS Conference. University of Oviedo, April 2017.

•  “Mobile City Worlds in Zimbabwean Fiction Post-2000: Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006).” 17th Triennial ACLALS Conference. University of Stellenbosch, July 2016.

•  “Adoption in Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory.” 42nd Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. Kennesaw State University and Emory University, April 2016.

• “‘The future is born from the seeds of the present but carries with it the ashes of the past.ʼ Contested Masculinities and Visions for Fatherhood in Selected Short Stories from Zimbabwe.” 41st Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. University of Bayreuth, June 2015.  

•  “Transnational Migration in Recent Zimbabwean Fiction.” 26th GAPS Annual Conference. University of Münster, May 2015.

•  “Widowhood, (Dis)inheritance and the Gender Asset Gap in Contemporary African Anglophone Literature.” 15th Triennial EACLALS Conference. University of Innsbruck, April 2014.

•  “Border Crossings in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea: Displacement or Translocation?” 9th Biennial MESEA Conference. Saarland University, Saarbrücken, May 2014.

•  “’And suddenly one can't use the road one is used to.ʼ A Border Poetics Approach to Urbanisation in Anglophone Literature from Ghana and Tanzania.” 1st Annual Conference of the Postgraduate Forum Postcolonial Narrations. University of Göttingen, October 2013

Doctorate (summa cum laude)

Doctoral researcher at the Department for English and American Studies

First State Exam in German Studies and English Studies/Deutsch und Englisch für das Lehramt an Gymnasien und Gesamtschulen

• Rethinking the Order of Time. Interdisciplinary Research Network (ReOTi network)
• Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikawissenschaften / Center for Interdisciplinary African Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt (ZIAF)
• The European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS)
• Alumniverein der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes / Alumni Association of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation
• ACLALS
• Center for Religion and Society (ZERG, University of Bonn) 
• TRA Present Pasts (University of Bonn)

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena: “Critique, Suspicion, and Reading for Allyship in Postcolonial Studies.” New Conjunctures and Directions in Literary and Cultural Studies, edited by Magdalena Pfalzgraf, Anna Tabouratzidis und Ansgar Nünning. Tübingen: Narr/Francke/Attempto, REAL-Series, 2025. 53-77.  

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena (with Anna Tabouratzidis und Ansgar Nünning): “The Undead Arts and Humanities. Against the Swansong of Mourning and Decline.“ New Conjunctures and Directions in Literary and Cultural Studies, edited by Magdalena Pfalzgraf, Anna Tabouratzidis und Ansgar Nünning. Tübingen: Narr/Francke/Attempto, REAL-Series, 2025. 11-33.

• Toivanen, Anna-Leena and Magdalena Pfalzgraf (Editors). “Introduction: Moving Publicly, Writing Mobility: Public Transport in African Literatures.” Moving Publicly, Writing Mobility: Public Transport in African Literatures. Special Issue of English Studies in Africa 67.2. (2024): 1-15.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena and Hanna Teichler. “Introduction: The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature – The Mobilizing Potential of Transcultural World Literature.” The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. Edited by Silvia Anastasijevic, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, and Hanna Teichler. London: Bloomsbury, 2024. 1-31. DOI: 10.5040/9781350374102-006

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena. “The Lion Became a Historian. Some Thoughts on Memory, History, and Storytelling.” Memories of Diversity – Diversity of Memory. Edited by Astrid M. Fellner, Laurence McFalls. Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 2023. 15-27.

• Fellner, Astrid M., Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Magdalena Pfalzgraf. “Aufklärung(en) und (Post)Kolonialismus – Einleitung.” Aufklärungen: Strategien und Kontroversen vom 17. bis 21. Jahrhundert. Edited by Johannes Birgfeld, Stephanie Catani, and Anne Conrad in collaboration with Sophia Mehrbrey. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2022. 421-428.

• Fellner, Astrid M. and Magdalena Pfalzgraf. “Sexuelle Begegnungen im Pazifik: Alternatives Körperwissen und fluide Geschlechter.” Aufklärungen: Strategien und Kontroversen vom 17. bis 21. Jahrhundert. Edited by Johannes Birgfeld, Stephanie Catani, and Anne Conrad in collaboration with Sophia Mehrbrey. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2022. 523-440.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena. “Walking Cities, Conquering Pavements. Foreword.” Tanaka Chidora. Because Sadness Is Beautiful? Poems. Harare: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, 2020. ix-xii.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena. “Flânerie in Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006).” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 58.2 (2021): 18-28.   

• Anastasijevic, Silvia, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler (Editors). “Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures: Readings in Contemporary Anglophone Literatures.” Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures. Special Issue of Kairos. A Journal of Critical Symposium 4.1. (2019): 1-8.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena. “Representations of White Zimbabwean Mobilities in Recent Anglophone Fiction Graham Lang’s Lettah’s Gift  (2011) and Ian Holding’s Of Beasts & Beings (2010).” Mobility and Minorities in Africa. Edited by Michele Carboni and Giovanni Sistu. Rome: Aracne, 2019. 235-257.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena. “A Hundred Years After: The View from the Train as a Glimpse into a Lost Idyll in Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ (1917).” Discourses of Mobility – Mobility of Discourse. The Conceptualization of Trains, Cars and Planes in 19th- and 20th-Century Poetry. Edited by Peter Wenzel and Sven Strasen. Trier: WVT, 2010. 71-79.

Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries. London: Routledge, 2021.

Reviewed by: 

• Dube, Nhlanhla. “Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries by Magdalena Pfalzgraf (review).” Research in African Literatures, 53.4 (Winter 2023): 175-177. 

• Muchemwa, Kizito Zhiradzago. “Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries.” Postcolonial Text, 18.3 (2023): 1-4. 

• Stork, Michelle. “Mobility in contemporary Zimbabwean literature in English: Crossing borders, transcending boundaries.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 22 February 2023: 1-2.

• Tagwirei, Cuthbeth. “Mobility in contemporary Zimbabwean literature in English: crossing borders, transcending boundaries.” Journal of the African Literature Association, 16.2 (2022), 386-387.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena, Anna Sophia Tabouratzidis, and Ansgar Nünning. New Conjunctures and Directions in Literary and Cultural Studies. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2025.

• Pfalzgraf, Magdalena and Anna-Leena Toivanen (Editors). Moving Publicly, Writing Mobility: Public Transport in African Literatures. Special Issue of English Studies in Africa 67.2. (2024).

• Anastasijevic, Silvia, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler (Editors). The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. London: Bloomsbury, 2024.

Published reviews of this edited volume:

• • Dempsey, Reid. “The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. Edited by Silvia Anastasijevic, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, and Hannah Teichler. Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 312 pp.” Intelligence 57(1), Spring 2024, 195-199.

  • Irving, Roslyn Joy. 2025. “The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions: Edited by Silvia Anastasijevic, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, and Hanna Teichler, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, 312 Pp., £90.00 (Hardback), ISBN 9781350374072.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, October 2025, 1–2. 

  • Ouyang, Yunjing. “The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. Ed. by Silvia Anastasijevic, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 61(2), April 2025, 188–189.

  • Tajjiou, Azzeddine. “The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. Edited by Silvia Anastasijevic, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, and Hanna Teichler, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. New Horizons in Contemporary Writing. 312 pp. ISBN 9781350374119. Hardcover $120.00, paperback $39.95, ebook $35.95.” Knowledge Commons, 2025, 1-6. 

• Anastasijevic, Silvia, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler (Editors). Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures. Special Issue of Kairos. A Journal of Critical Symposium 4.1. (2019).

Matatu is a peer-reviewed journal focused on African literary and cultural studies, open to interdisciplinary dialogue with fields such as the social sciences, cultural anthropology, and history, currently published by DeGruyter Brill. 

• Journal Homepage
• Journal Wikipedia Entry

Editors-in-Chief 

Editorial Assistant

• Elisa Brohl (University of Bonn)

Popular Contributions: 

• Ogoti, Vincent R. "Unbreakable Bodies: The Maji Maji Rebellion and Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjeketile." Matatu, published online October 2025.
• Muller, Alan. "Poetry in Motion: The taxi and taxi poetry as sites of mobility and creativity in Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry." Matatu, Vol. 55, No. 2, 2024, pp. 358–375.
• Raia, Annachiara. “Texts, Voices and Tapes.” Matatu, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2020, pp. 139-168.
• Mekgwe, Pinkie. “Theorizing African Feminism(s). The ‘Colonial’ Question.” Matatu, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2007, pp. 165-174.
• Van Wyk, Johan. "Afrikaans Poetry and the South African Intertext." Matatu, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1996, pp. 111-116. 

Indexes:

• Web of Science
• MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
• Academic Search Alumni Edition
• Academic Search Complete
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• ANVUR Italian Scientific Qualification Journal Index
• ERIH PLUS
• IBZ - Internationale Bibliographie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur
• International Index to Black Periodicals, 2003-
• Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlicher Literatur
• Linguistics Abstracts Online
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (Online), Selective
• Poetry & Short Story Reference Center, 10/1/2004-
• Political Science Complete, 10/1/2004-
• Scopus