Eric Essono Tsimi
Asst Professor
Weissman School of Arts and Sciences
Department: Modern Languages & Comp Lit
Areas of expertise: Africa, Francophone Worlds, African Diasporas
Email Address: eric.tsimi@baruch.cuny.edu
> View CV- Biography
- Research and Creative Activity
- Grants
- Honors and Awards
- Service
Eric Essono Tsimi serves as the DEI Fridays Program Coordinator, a member of the Joint Committe on Research and the WSAS Committee as Representative to the Marxe School of Public & International Affairs. In 2020, he joined the Modern Languages and Comparative Literature Department as an Assistant Professor. Affiliated with Black and Latino Studies Department, his research is centered on the intersections of literature, politics, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. His ideas have been featured in media outlets such as Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, African Arguments and The Conversation.
Professor Tsimi has a record of ten authored books, which cover a variety of formats, including monographs, fiction, and non-fiction pieces. He is a regular keynote speaker at conferences. His contributions to both teaching and research have garnered awards and fellowships, including the Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, CUNY Scholar Incentive Award, Eugene Lang Fellowship, Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP), Paula Berggren Enrichment Fund Award, and the PSC-CUNY Award.
His recent or forthcoming publications (2021-2025) include:
-
L'antiracisme rend-il heureux? Race et Ethnicité dans les espaces francophones,
-
De quoi la littérature africaine est-elle la littérature? Pour une critique décoloniale
- Vous autres civilisations savez désormais que vous êtes mortelles: de la contre-utopie
- Les Inadmirables. Hermann (2024)
- He is contracted with Bloomsbury Academic as lead editor of a forthcoming volume (2025) along with Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Andrea Behrends.
Education
Ph.D., French Studies, University of Virginia Charlottesville United States
Doctorate, African Literature & Cultural Psychology, Université Grenoble-Alpes / University of Lausanne France / Switzerland France
M.A., Intercultural Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana Lugano Switzerland
Books
Tsimi, E. (2027). Epistemic Freedom & Francophone Africa. In Progress.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2026). Sin Country: Politics and Literature in Cameroon. In Progress.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2024). Les Inadmirables Essai sur l'art (forcément) peu subtil de la bêtise. (p. 172). Paris, France, Hermann.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2022). De quoi la littérature africaine est-elle la littérature ? (Pour une critique décoloniale). (p. 312). Montréal, Canada, Presses de l'Université de Montréal.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2022). L’Antiracisme rend-il heureux ?. (p. 242). Paris, France, Editions Hermann.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2021). Vous autres civilisations savez désormais que vous êtes mortelles. (p. 206). Paris, France, Classiques Garnier.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2018). L'origine du mal. Paris, France, Acoria Editions.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2017). Les ex ne meurent jamais. Toulouse, France, L'Orpailleur.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2015). Migrants Diaries. Paris, France, Acoria Editions.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2013). Le Principe de double nationalité au Cameroun. Paris, France, L'Harmattan.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2013). Le métier d'aimer. Paris, France, L'Harmattan éditions.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2004). Le jeu de la vengeance. Yaounde, Cameroon, Sopecam.
Journal Articles
(2024). Noir et Black: les nuances de nègre (dans une histoire littéraire blanche) . CFC Intersections, vol. 3 (2024).
Essono Tsimi, E. (2021). African Counter-utopias: from Counter-narratives to the Presentification of Alternative Worlds. African Literature Today / James Currey,
Essono Tsimi, E. (2021). Alain Mabanckou, un engagement manifeste. French Studies in Southern Africa, (51-1). 44--52.
Tsimi, E. (2021). Au-delà de l’aller-retour : Bifurcations, circulations et transactions du doctorant subsaharien en Europe. L'autre / Editions La Pensée Sauvage, (22). 95-104.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2020). Cartographie des identités afrosporiques à travers des personnages de fiction. ABA, Abá - the International Journal of Literature and Social Sciences / L'Harmattan, (6). 15-32.
Tsimi, E. (2019). A propos du style de Houellebecq: Insoumissions. Contemporary French & Francophone Studies : SITES, Volume 22(5). 621-629.
Tsimi, E. (2018). Pour une stratégie de contenus (culturels) dans la lutte contre le terrorisme en Afrique. Revue de Philologie et de Communication Interculturelle , II(1). 49-58.
Tsimi, E. (2017). En transit ou à destination? Le Black Bazar des écrivains migrants africains. International Journal of Francophone Studies , 20(3-4). 257-272.
Tsimi, E. (2015). Toujours migrants, mais désormais écrivains: stratégies identitaires et littérature africaine . Loxias, 50.
Book Chapters
Essono Tsimi, E. (2018). One brief Eruption of Madness, in Identity : New Short Story Fiction from Africa. Oxford, London.
Media Contributions
Essono Tsimi, E. (2023). Paul Biya’s ghostly legacy in Cameroon: The absence that shaped a nation.
In power for 41 years, the 90 year-old president has ruled mostly in absentia, a ghostly embodiment of a gerontocracy that has gifted its people the concept of Waithood.
(2020). Radio-Canada.
(2019). Today News Africa.
(2019). Al Jazeera.
(2018). The Conversation.
(2018). Jeune Afrique.
(2017). Le Monde.
(2015). Slate.
(2015). HuffingtonPost.
(2014). Les Afriques.
(2014). Le Monde, HuffPost (France, Québec, Maghreb), Slate, Afrik, La Tribune, Jeune Afrique, Contrepoints....
(2013). Slate.
(2011). Slate.
Presentations
Essono Tsimi, E. Restitution, Reparation: The Ethics of Rectification. 5th EthicsLab Conference: Ethics Centers and Epistemic Justice. Yaounde, Cameroon
Essono Tsimi, E. Critique de la faculté d’informer. 39th Annual 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium.. University of Pittsburgh
Essono Tsimi, E. How is the hiatus (if any) between theories and practical emergencies addressed within humanistic inquiry?” March 17, 2022. . African Research Matters.. Université Gaston Berger, Senegal
Tsimi, E. (2021, April 22). On the difference between counter-utopia and dystopia. Collapse and Extinction: Art, Literature and Discourse.
Essono Tsimi, E. (2021, May 29). Le fait ethnique dans les mouvements émancipateurs francophones. LA FRANCOPHONIE : ESPACE DE CIRCULATIONS TRANSNATIONALES DANS UN MONDE GLOBAL ET CONNECTÉ (FIN XIXE-XXE S.). Montpellier: La Revue Relations internationales.
Tsimi, E. (2020, July 31). Motherless Tongues, Multiples Belongingd II. Translating the future Colloquium.
Tsimi, E. (2020, March 26). L'heuristique de la peur dans 2084. ''Speaking the Earth'' 20th & 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium.
Tsimi, E. (2019, January 5). What does Mabanckou stand for ?. MLA Convention.
Tsimi, E. (2018, October 26). Grandeur et Décadence de l'empire de Rabah. 44th Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Conference.
Tsimi, E. (2018, May 26). Ville cruelle, village mortel: questionning the homecoming in Mongo Beti's early novels. "Environments of African Literature" 44th Annual meeting of the African Literature Association.
Tsimi, E. (2017, November 15). L'Age du self: le soi dialogique comme cadre d'analyse des identités afrosporiques.
Tsimi, E. (2017, November 17). Migrant writer's selves: le syndrome de l'enfant multiple. Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies Annual Conference.
Tsimi, E. (2017, September 5). African Authorial Identities: Dialogical Analysis of I-positionning in African Writers' Narratives.
Tsimi, E. (2016, May 5). Au sein de l'être, on trouve l'autre: du je collectif au nous majestatif dans le roman francophone.
Tsimi, E. (2015, December 11). Retour vers le futur dans ''Aux Etats-Unis d'Afrique''.
Tsimi, E. (2015, October 16). De la littérature orale à la littérature humorale.
Tsimi, E. (2014, June 17). La question de l'engagement dans les stratégies identitaires des écrivains afrosporiques.
Essono Tsimi, E. Langue, langage, communication: la stratégie culturelle décoloniale en question . FRACALA Caucus Guest Speaker. 47th Annual meeting of the African Literature Association.
Essono Tsimi, E. Indignation politique, action civique, et savoirs en mouvement: L’esthétique camerounaise de l’avenir. Doctoral Seminar. University of Douala. University of Douala, Cameroon
Essono Tsimi, E. Epistémologies de la liberation. Groupe de Théologies africaines et Afro-descendantes, Thèsardons ! and AEERUM.. University of Montreal, Canada
Other Scholarly Works
Tsimi, E. (2021). Afropolis: A novel.
In Progress.Tsimi, E. (2017). La photo de mon père.
Reviews
Essono Tsimi, E. (1970,January 1). Tsimi on Bouamer and Bourdeau, edsBouamer, Siham and Bourdeau Loc, eds. Diversity and Decolonization in French Studies: New Approaches to Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. xxi + 267, 2 tabl., ISBN: 978-3-030-95356-0. Nineteenth-Century French Studies (ISSN 0146-7891). JSTOR.
Tsimi, E. (2021,October 1). Max Jacob, A life in art and letters. St-Etienne,France: Les Cahiers de Max Jacob.
Tsimi, E. (2019,July 1). Review of Scoring Race: Jazz, Fiction, and Francophone Africa. University of Nebraska Press,United States: Nouvelles Études Francophones.
Tsimi, E. (2018,October 1). Review of Narrating Itsembabwoko. University of Nebraska Press,United States: Nouvelles Etudes Francophones.
| Title | Funding Agency Sponsor | Start Date | End Date | Awarded Date | Total Funding | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De quoi la littérature africaine est-elle la littérature : Vers une critique décoloniale | PSC CUNY 52 | 07/01/2021 | 06/30/2023 | 04/15/2021 | 6000 | Completed |
| A ComparativeApproach to the Decolonial Epistemologies in the Twenty-First Century Africa | Eugene Lang Fellowship | 06/01/2023 | 06/30/2024 | 04/28/2023 | 6469 | Funded - In Progress |
| Honor / Award | Organization Sponsor | Date Received | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eugene Lang Fellowship | 2023-05-08 | ||
| Scholar Incentive Award | 2022-09-01 | ||
| Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers | Alexander von Humboldt Foundation | 2022-03-31 | |
| The Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP) | 2021-09-01 | ||
| Traditional B Award | PSC-CUNY | 2021 | Manuscript preparation, Book ''Pour une critique décoloniale'' |
Department
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Faculty Meeting | Secretary for Departmental meetings | 9/1/2021 | Present |
College
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Faculty Meeting | Secretary for Departmental meetings | Present | |
| General Faculty Meeting | Secretary a.i. | Present | |
| WSAS Committee | Representative to the Marxe School | Present | |
| Joint Committee on Research | Committee Member | Present | |
| Weissman CAS committee of academic standing | Committee Member | Present | |
| Teaching Observation | Faculty Advisor | Present | |
| DEI Fridays | Program Coordinator | Present |
Professional
| Organization | Position Role | Organization State | Organization Country | Start Date | End Date | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manuscripts referee | Reviewer, Journal Article | 8/1/2021 | 9/30/2021 |