Pan African Initiative for Research (PAIR) | March-April Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series

[Arts Communications]

The University of Waterloo recently launched the Pan African Initiative for Research<https://uwaterloo.ca/pan-african-initiative-for-research/> (PAIR), a new interdisciplinary research initiative designed to advance collaborative, community rooted, and globally engaged scholarship across Pan African contexts, including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Afro-diasporic communities worldwide.
PAIR is proud to launch Speculative Futures Visiting Writer Series with Shingai Njeri Kagunda, an award-winning Afrosurrealist/Afrofuturist author from Nairobi, Kenya. Kagunda is the author of We Who Will Not Die (2025 Ignyte Award, Outstanding Novelette) and & This is How to Stay Alive (2022 Ignyte Award, Best Novella), co-Editor-in-Chief of Fantasy Magazine, and co-founder of Voodoonauts, an Afrofuturist writing workshop for Black writers. Their work, which has appeared in Best American Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Year's Best African Speculative Fiction, Lightspeed, and Africa Risen, explores themes of social memory, resistance, and transformation.
Kagunda's residency will include classroom visits, hosted conversations, and a public reading--engaging students and faculty across disciplines with speculative fiction as both creative practice and critical methodology.
Schedule of Events, March–April 2026

  *   Monday, March 16, 11:45 am–12:45 pm | Storytelling & Social Justice (Online) Kagunda visits Dr. Katy Fulfer's Arts First course, "Inquiry and Knowledge Creation: Gender on the Edge of Time."
  *   Monday, March 16, 6:30–8:00 pm | Storytelling & Social Justice, Continued (Online) Theorypractice Lab hosts an extended conversation with Kagunda following the morning guest lecture.
  *   Thursday, March 19, 4:00–5:00 pm | WISH Reading Group Short Story Discussion (Hybrid) The Waterloo Initiative of Solarpunk and Hope (WISH) gathers to discuss Kagunda's story "The Once-Girl Made of Mycelium," with Kagunda joining virtually for an author reading and group discussion. | Modern Languages Building, Room 245 + Online
  *   Tuesday, April 7, 6:00–8:00 pm | Public Reading + Conversation (In Person) Kagunda reads from recent work, followed by conversation shared over food and refreshments. | EC5, Room 1111, 305 Philip St., Waterloo

Register for the Visiting Writer Series<https://uwaterloo.ca/pan-african-initiative-for-research/events/pair-speculative-futures-visiting-writer-series>

The Visiting Writer Series is co-sponsored by the Department of Communication Arts, the Department of English Language and Literature, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (through a research grant held by Brianna Wiens), WISH: Waterloo Initiative of Solarpunk and Hope, Theorypractice Lab, and the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism.


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