Jacomien van Niekerk is currently associate professor in the Department of Afrikaans at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa where she teaches literature on undergraduate and postgraduate level and supervises postgraduate students in the fields of Afrikaans literature, African literature (English and French), African oral literature and literary theory.
She has been the editor of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde (Journal for Literature): a journal for African literature since 2020. This peer-reviewed, open access journal is indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals and Scielo SA among others. She is also the treasurer of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA).
Jacomien published a monograph based on her doctoral dissertation, titled ‘baie worde’: Identiteit en transformasie by Antjie Krog (‘Many becomings’: Identity, transformation and Antjie Krog; 2016, Van Schaik). She has published articles in a variety of South African journals on Afrikaans poetry and plays, oral literature in Africa, critical race theory and postcolonial theory and has contributed book chapters to several publications.
She studied languages at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa where she obtained a master’s degree in Afrikaans literature (2009) and a D.Litt. (2015). Fluent in Afrikaans, English and Dutch, she also has some proficiency in French and German. She matriculated from Vryheid High School, Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
