Emiliano Minerba

Postdoctoral Researcher, Philosophy and Genre Project
Emiliano Minerba is a scholar of African poetics who worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC-funded project Philosophy and Genre: Creating a Textual Basis for African Philosophy at the University of Bayreuth. He graduated from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in 2017 and began his PhD research in 2018 through a joint programme between “L’Orientale” and the University of Bayreuth. He completed his dissertation, Comparative Historical Analysis of Swahili and Wolof Metrical Systems, in 2022.

He is currently based at the LLACAN laboratory (UMR 8135–CNRS), where he leads BantuVerse, an MSCA-funded project investigating versification traditions in Bantu languages across Southern and Eastern Africa, with a primary focus on Chewa. His research explores Swahili and Wolof poetic traditions as bearers of philosophical reflection, analysing how metre, rhythm, and performance generate meaning and experience.

Beyond Swahili and Wolof poetics, Emiliano’s interests extend to modern literatures—particularly theatre—and to oral poetic forms across the Bantu area. His work situates African poetic traditions within comparative literary and philosophical frameworks, highlighting the ways in which orality and form articulate thought.