Faculty & Staff
Soji Cole
Associate Professor
Office: MN 318
Email: soji.cole@smu.ca
Overview
Soji Cole studied at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria where he earned a diploma certificate, a bachelor's degree, a master’s degree and a PhD in the areas of theatre, drama, performance, film, and sociology of literature. He is completing a second PhD program in Interdisciplinary Humanities and Artistic Research Creation at Brock University, Ontario Canada. He has been a double recipient of the Diversity Studies International Teaching and Scholarship Network Fellowship, with the University of Augsburg, and Carl Von Ossietzsky University, Oldenburg in Germany. He was a Fulbright scholar at Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA. He received a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in Black Studies at Queens University, Ontario, Canada. He has been a Guest Research Scholar at the Center for Research and Creative Exchange, University of Roehampton, UK.
He won the 2018 edition of the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature—the highest endowed literature prize in Africa. He was a winner of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Playwriting Prize. A winner of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) New Scholars Prize, as well as a winner of the African Theatre Association (AfTA) Emerging Scholars Prize. His teaching, scholarship, research, and creative practice span the areas of Performance, Drama, and Film (Practice and Research), Theatre, Literary and Performance Criticism, African & Black theatre, African & Black Diaspora Literature, Black Studies & Race Theories, Trauma and Memory Studies in Drama, Performance and Film, Interdisciplinary Studies, Creative Writing, and Research Creation. He is a practising playwright/dramatist, film scriptwriter, poet, short story writer, director, and actor.
Soji Cole is currently a member of the Community Selection Circle for Foundation for Black Communities in Canada (FBCC) and an executive member of the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS).
Before his appointment with Saint Mary’s University, he worked as a full-time faculty member with Bowen University and University of Ibadan both in Nigeria. In Canada, he worked with Brock University as a course coordinator and Queens University as an adjunct instructor. He teaches Black Atlantic Literature, Literature and Resistance, and Creative Writing at Saint Mary's University.
He is a self-labelled loafing song composer and a degenerate dancer.
Publications
Creative writing
1. Cole, S. (2026) “A Day Before Lovers’ Day” (a poem) published in The Vertical History, Issue 1 “76”. (inaugural issue) https://theverticalhistory.com/#the-day-before-lovers%E2%80%99-day
2. Cole, S. (2021) “An Elegy for EndSars”, published in Sorosoke: An #EndSars Anthology, Jumoke Verissimo & James Yeku (Eds.), Noirledge Publishing, Nigeria. (Poetry)
3. Cole, S. (2021) “Black Lives Always Matter”, published in The Shallow Tales Review, Issue 33.(Poetry)
4. Cole, S. (2020) “Song of Sorrow”, published in Wreaths for a Way farer: An Anthology of Poems for Pius Adesanmi, Nduka Otiono & Uchechukwu Umezurike (Eds.), Daraja Press, Canada (Poetry)
5. Cole, S. (2018) Embers, Emotion Press Ltd. Nigeria, (drama - winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature)
6. Cole, S. (2014) “Ghost”, published in the ANA REVIEW, New Series, Vol. 2 (Short story)
7. Cole, S. (2013) Maybe Tomorrow, Kraft Books Ltd. Nigeria, (drama - winner of the Association of Nigerian Authors’ Playwriting Prize)
8. Cole, S. (2010) “My Little Stream”, published in Daughters of Eve—and other new short stories from Nigeria, (Emma Dawson, ed.), CCC Press, UK. (Short story)
Chapters in academic books
9. Cole, F. & Cole, S. (2027) ““Blackering”: The Performative Pedagogy of Black African Immigrants in Canadian Universities”, in Blackademia: Professoring While Black, University of Regina Press.
10. Cole, S. & Gloria Asoloko (2021) “Anthropogenic anxiety and the pedagogy of climate crisis in Wake Up Everyone”. Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis. Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy (Eds). Routledge, pp. 102-114, ISBN: 978-0-367-54154-49.
11. Cole, S. (2013) “Modernizing Shamanism: An Overview of Three Psychodrama Models for Community Health Intervention in Africa”. Arts, Culture and Communication in a Postcolony: A Festchrift for Lawrence Olanrele Bamidele. Akoh, D and Inegbe, S (Eds). Alpha Crownes Publishers, pp. 133 – 149, ISBN: 978-0-9566837-4-8
Refereed journal publications
12. Cole, S. (2021) “The Autobiography as a Photograph”. Academia Letters, Article 187. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL187
13. Cole, S. (2021) "That “Other” in Latour and Bhabha’s Politics of “Hybridity”. The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies 19 (1): 13-24. doi:10.18848/2327-0055/CGP/v19i01/13-24.
14. Cole, S. (2021) “Performance in Boko Haram’s Religious Fanaticism”. Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 23 (2021) ISSN 1522-5668. Available on open access at, https://dspace2.creighton.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10504/130821/2021-22.pdf
15. Cole, S. (2020) “On The Counter-Pedagogical Effects of Wikipedia Hyperlinks”. The Brock Review, Vol. 1. Available on university open access at,
brockreviewonline.wordpress.com/2020/09/08/example-post-2/
16. Cole, S. (2020) “Narrative ‘Trauma-Testimony’ and Fragmented Identity in Sometimes in April”. Humanities Bulletin, 3(2), 190-207. Available on open access at, journals.lapub.co.uk/index.php/HB/article/view/1678
17. Cole, S. (2014) “Trauma and the Spectacle of the Other: Cultural Memory in Mainframe’s Saworoide”. Ibadan Journal of Theatre Arts, No. 8: 92 – 107.
18. Cole, S. (2014) “Post-apartheid Stratification: The Trauma of Shattered Assumption in John Kani.s Nothing but the Truth”. Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, Vol. 24: 211 – 231
19. Cole, S. (2013) “Embodied Memory – A Trauma-theoretical Approach to Chukwuma Okoye’s We the Beast”. Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, No. 22: 184 – 211
20. Cole, S. (2013) “Trauma Unspeakable – Women of Owu and the Echoes of a Timeless Lament”. Ibadan Journal of Theatre Arts, No. 6: 120 – 135
Ongoing works (creative writing)
1. “Look Black in Anger” (a kitchen-sink drama about race, racism, cultural clash, and contemporary immigration)
2. “Hard Waters” (a monologic ethno-poetics of water, referencing an event from the trans-Atlantic slave trade era)
3. "Men Also Suffer Post-Partum Depression" ( a collection of short stories)