- Emeritus Professor of African Cultural Anthropology, University of Birmingham
Karin Barber researched and taught for many years in western Nigeria before returning to the UK. Her research focuses on Yorùbá oral literature, popular theatre and print culture. Her books include I Could Speak Until Tomorrow (1991), on oral praise poetry in a Yoruba town; The Generation of Plays (2000) on a popular travelling Yoruba theatre company; Print Culture and the First Yoruba Novel (2012) on a sensational Yoruba-language narrative published in colonial Lagos; and Much Matter in a Penny Paper (2026) on early Yoruba-language print culture in Lagos. She has also done wider comparative work on the anthropology of texts (2007) and the history of African popular culture (2018).
Experience
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–presentEmeritus Professor of African Cultural Anthropology, University of Birmingham
Honours
DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire); Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
Contact Karin for
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- Location: Birmingham, UK
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