I live in Baltimore’s historic neighborhood of Bolton Hill with my husband Kwamina, our son Benji Eyiku, and a huge three-legged cat we call The Scamp. While South Africa has long been my main second home, these days I’m found as often in Ghana. I work across English, Russian, Afrikaans, Shona, and Fante literary and intellectual traditions, and I’m always glad to hear from other unorthodox comparatists. In addition to my main field of African literature, I have published on novel theory, literature and philosophy, political thought, comparative method, and Russian realism. I am also the Director of Johns Hopkins’ Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and Senior Editor of ELH.

In 2021, I was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. You can read more about my fellowship research on the Gold Coast statesman and writer J.E. Casely Hayford here. 

Aside from academic books and essays, I write for a wide range of public-facing venues. You can find links to that work on my “Other Writing” page.

Feel free to contact me at jjacks98@jhu.edu. 

(Photo credit: Ram Studios.)