Kirk Bryan Sides

Degrees and Institutions

Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles
B.A. magna cum laude History, University of South Florida

Interests

African Literature, Environmental Humanities, Climate Change, Speculative Fiction

Research Interests and Bio

Kirk is a Faculty member of the English Department whose research and teaching focus on African literature and the environment. He is an Affiliate Faculty member in African Cultural Studies and the Center for Culture, History and the Environment at UW Madison, and a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Center for Diversity Studies in Johannesburg.

His book Environmental Entanglements: African Literature’s Ecological Imaginary was published in the US, the UK and Europe by Oxford University Press (December 2025). The African continent edition of Environmental Entanglements was published in January 2026 by Wits University Press in Johannesburg.

His research has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, and the Brigstow Institute. Kirk was a Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for the Environment and Society in Munich, as well as a Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Penn State Humanities Institute. He was also a Research Fellow at the University of Witwatersrand’s Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Kirk has co-created a series of workshops, titled “Anthropocene Storytelling,” which employ speculative and creative methodologies for thinking about environmental precarity and climate change. “Anthropocene Storytelling” has been hosted by numerous institutions and platforms including the Pennsylvania State University, the University of the Witwatersrand, and “Visions & Voices” at the University of Southern California.

Selected Publications

“African Literature’s Ecological Imaginary” in Intellectual Traditions of African Literature 1960–2015, eds. Jean-Marie Jackson and Cajetan Iheka (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

“Eco-Cosmogonies: Climate Change and Ecological Form.” Verge: Studies in Global Asias, v. 8.1, 2022.

“Anthropocene Storytelling: Ecological Writing and Pedagogies of Planetary Change.” (Co-authored with Tjawangwa Dema) Teaching Postcolonial Environmental Literature and Media, ed. Cajetan N. Iheka. New York: Modern Language Association, January 2022, pp. 298-308.

“Holocaust and the Indian Ocean: Jewish Detention in Mauritius, 1940-1945.” Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, v.19, September 2021, pp. 105-133.

“Seed Bags and Storytelling: Modes of Living and Writing after the End in Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi.” Critical Philosophy of Race: Special Issue on Race and the Anthropocene, v. 7.1, January 2019, pp. 107-123.

“Narratives of Modernity: Creolization and Early-Postcolonial Style in Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka.” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, v. 5.3, April 2018, pp. 158-175.

Courses Taught

Literatures of Decolonization
African Ecologies

Other Affiliations

Affiliate Professor of African Cultural Studies
Steering Committee, Center for Culture, History and the Environment
Editorial Board, University of Wisconsin Press.
Research Associate, University of the Witwatersrand Center for Diversity Studies