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Liz Gunner
Visiting Professor
Professor Liz Gunner has published widely in the field of African oral literature and on modern performance practice in southern Africa. Her PhD in African Languages and Literatures, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1984), and on Zulu Praising and Praises. Much of her work has explored question of language, change and identity in Zulu performative culture, within the broader regional African context. Her most recent work follows through her sustained interest in language and performance, and in some cases moves into new but linked domains, namely media and in particular radio as a site of key creativity and resilience in the African context, as well as migration, and Southern African migrants’ use of digital media in South Africa. Her current project is a book on precarity and song in post-1994 South Africa. She is also involved in a group project Negotiating Languages of Johannesburg through AI.
Last reviewed: 2026/07/15
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Professor Liz Gunner has published widely in the field of African oral literature and on modern performance practice in southern Africa. Her PhD in African Languages and Literatures, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1984), and on Zulu Praising and Praises. Much of her work has explored question of language, change and identity in Zulu performative culture, within the broader regional African context. Her most recent work follows through her sustained interest in language and performance, and in some cases moves into new but linked domains, namely media and in particular radio as a site of key creativity and resilience in the African context, as well as migration, and Southern African migrants’ use of digital media in South Africa. Her current project is a book on precarity and song in post-1994 South Africa. She is also involved in a group project Negotiating Languages of Johannesburg through AI. Publications 2024: ‘Beyond the Static: Women, Voice and Radio Zulu in the 1970s and 1980s’ Taylor & Francis: https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2023.2282452 2023: ‘Cultural Histories of South Africa’ Oxford: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921767.013.12 2020: ‘Political Song in Africa’ ed Nic Cheeseman Oxford: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780190632342.001.0001/acref-9780190632342-e-901 2019: ‘Radio Soundings. South Africa and the Black Modern’ Cambridge: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108556903 Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Award: Book of the Year (2020) Long-list: Sunday Times’ Book of the Year (2021) 2018: ‘With Respect to Zulu’ with Judith Irvine JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26646101 ‘Ecologies of Orality’ in The Cambridge Companion to World Literature’ eds Ben Etherington and Jarad Zimbler Cambridge: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108613354.008 2016 ‘Thick time, Heavy time’ Ethnos 83:2 Taylor & Francis: https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2016.1139607 2015: ‘Song, identity and the state: Julius Malema's Dubul’ ibhunu song as catalyst’ JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24758684 2014 ‘Soft Masculinities, “Isicathamiya” and Radio’ JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566533 2011 ‘Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities’ eds Liz Gunner, Dina Ligaga, and Dumisani Moyo. Taylor & Francis: https://doi.org/10.1080/02560054.2013.853362 2009: ‘Jacob Zuma, the Social Body and the Unruly Power of Song’ JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27667093 2008: ‘Power, Marginality and African Oral Literature’ eds Graham Furniss and Liz Gunner Cambridge: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164 2005: ‘Africa and orality’ Cambridge: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-african-and-caribbean-literature/africa-and-orality/8D9528D6A8108F1BAD5536DF21D197C8 2002 (2004 2 nd edition (UKZN) includes letter from Bishop Shembe): ‘The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God’ ed and translator Liz Gunner Brill: https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004496682 Further reading: Article: https://theconversation.com/amp/how-zulu-radio-dramas-subverted-apartheids-grand-design-126786 Review: https://doi.org/10.2307/220618