Amos Tutuola
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Rereading Beier
The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. g Beier Wole Ogundele The name Ullwais well-knowBeien in the rEnglish-speaking and German-speak- ing worlds from the 1950s to the 1970s. Especially in the 1950s and'60s. It was invariably linked with that of Susanne Wenger, the Austrian artist who was his first wife. So famous was this man who had been working and residing in one West African corner of the British empire that when he left Nigeria in 1966 December for Papua New Guinea, no less a magazine than the TLS announced it. Among the Yoruba of western Nigeria, his name and Susanne's have entered folklore while he himself has been transformed into a fictional character in at least two African novels in English. Indeed, so much was he on everybody's lips in Nigeria in those days that his second wife, Georgina, heard about him long before she met him. Living in the far-away northern Nigerian town in Zaria in the early 1960s, she had heard so much about him and had made it a point of duty to meet this man whose name was on everybody's lips whenever she went down south. In due course, she and her first husband took a trip to Lagos. Their car broke down in one of the obscure streets and as they were standing around notknowing what to do, two white gentlemen saw them and stopped to offer help. -
Theatrical Visual Languages in Duro Ladipo's Three Yoruba Plays
1 CHAPTER ONE THE ORIGINS OF DURO LADIPO’S THEATRE Introduction There is no doubt that traditional Yoruba travelling theatre occupies a significant position in the sociocultural, political and religious milieu of the Yoruba people. This is because in most cases their ways of life, their world views and their being as a whole are commonly expressed through performance. This work seeks to investigate an aspect of Yoruba traditional theatre; this being the theatrical visual languages in the plays of Duro Ladipo - one of the most prominent of the 20th century Yoruba playwrights and actors. The need to embark on this work is motivated by the need to bring to light the intrinsic values contained in the visual theatrics of Duro Ladipo’s three Yoruba plays, namely Oba Koso,1 Oba Waja2 and Oba Moro3. The visual component of his plays takes one on a journey into understanding the aesthetics and expressions found in all aspects of Yoruba culture. It also explores the social, political and spiritual dynamics of Yoruba from an historical context and provides an extraordinary link into the life history of the avatars of Yoruba cosmology. The Eegun Alare (Alarinjo)4 theatre which is directly responsible for the birth of the Yoruba professional theatre, came out of the re-enactment of Yoruba legendary stories 1 Oba Koso means ‘the king did not hang’ in the Yoruba language, a term which refers to Sango, the legendary fourth king of Oyo and the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning. 2 Oba Waja is a term used for describing a deceased king in Yorubaland. -
A Critical Inquiry Into the Evolutionof Socio-Political
A CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO THE EVOLUTIONOF SOCIO-POLITICAL PERFORMANCES IN TRADITIONAL NIGERIA YORUBA ALARINJO AND CONTEMPORARY ITINERANT THEATRE THROUGH A REVIEW OF SELECTED WORKS OF HUBERT OGUNDE, WOLE SOYINKA, OLA ROTIMI AND FEMI OSOFISAN BAKARE, Babatunde Allen Dissertation Presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Drama and Theatre Studies) at the Stellenbosch University, South Africa Promotor: Prof. Petrus du Preez , 2018 December 1 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this dissertation is my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it at any University for a degree. Signature…………………… Date…………… Bakare Babatunde Allen December 2018 Copyright © 2018 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved 2 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the Almighty God for His grace and mercy towards the completion of this research work. I want to thank my dear wife, Adejoke Yewande Bakare and my children — Eyitayo, Oluwateeniolafunmi and Oluwadarasimi Bakare — for their passionate support and understanding around my scheduled visits to South Africa during the course of the programme. You all availed me the critical foundation right from the beginning of the research up to its completion. You are my esteemed Angels! My profound gratitude goes to the Chair of the Drama Department, Stellenbosch University, Prof. Petrus du Preez, who is also my promoter and supervisor. Thank you for your endless efforts to ensure the necessary depth in this thesis. I appreciate your mentoring, which has extremely transformed my scope of understanding and learning. -
Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics
ISSN: 0252-8169 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND AESTHETICS Vol. XXVI: Nos. 1-2: 2003 A VISHVANATHA KAVIRAJA INSTITUTE PUBLICATION Editor: A.C. SUKLA B-8, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar, Orissa India-768019. Fax-0663+2431915, Fax:0663+2431915 E.Mail: [email protected] Editorial Advisor Milton H. Snoeyenbos Department of Philosophy Georgia State University Atlanta: Georgia 30303, U.S.A. Editorial Board John Hospers University of Southern California W.J.T. Mitchel University of Chicago Ralph Chohen University of Virgina Susan Feagin Temple University Peter Lamarque University of York Denis Dutton University of Canterbury Michael H. Mitias Millsaps College Grazia Marchiano University of Siena V.K. Chari Carleton University S.K. Saxena University of Delhi Goran Hermeren University of Lund Patric Thomas City University of New York George E. Rowe University of Oregon E.S. Shaffer University of London Managing Editor Sanjay Sarangi Computer Typography D. Lokanath Dora All subscriptions/books for review/papers/reviews/ notes for publication are to be sent to the Editor Professor – S.S.Mishra 1934-2000 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND AESTHETICS Volume: XXVI: Nos. 1-2: 2003 In the memory of Late Professor Satyaswarupa Mishra Benaras Hindu University Founder Member, Editorial Board, JCLA A VISHVANATHA KAVIRAJA INSTITUTE PUBLICATION CONTENTS Zia Hasan 1-7 A Castle of Sand: The Theme Inncest in ' Tis Pity She s a Whore and The Alexandria Quartet A.Everette James, Jr. 9-13 Outsiders, Isolates, Environmentalists, Visionaries: the Spectrum of Descriptors in Contemporary American Folk Art, Are the Valid? P. Emeka Nwabueze 15-24 Ibsen's Marriage Of Art And Life: A Lucid Examination Sam. -
58 Hope Eghagha and the New Counter-Discourse in Death, Not A
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ejotmas.v6i1-2.4 58 Hope Eghagha and the New Counter-Discourse in Death, Not a Redeemer *Etop AKWANG Abstract This article identifies an inward rupture in the practice of counter- discourse amongst African writers and critics. It reveals how a range of credos embedded in African literature, including drama and theatre, such as negritude, African personality, pan- Africanism, etc., and originated by African writers/literati, to both contest and reverse imperialism’s depressing rhetoric against African civilization, now attains the locus of power and, co- instantaneously, conferred a certain hegemony which privileges pristine African values above all other alternate apprehensions of the universe in contemporary Africa. Drawing from content analysis as its research method, this article derives its theoretical foundations from the New Counter-Discourse, itself, an offshoot of Counter-Discourse, which assumes the moral gait of a faction that interrogates, from within Africa, the unwholesome perpetuation of African values as the dominant ideology in the activity of cultural production rather than situating them in a network or continuum of equitable or mutually accommodating discourses. The primary sources of information are derivable from Hope Eghagha’s Death, Not a Redeemer and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman while its secondary sources are critical analyses of both theories and texts gleaned from the library. Keywords: Hope Eghagha, New Counter-Discourse, Wole Soyinka, Death, Not a Redeemer Introduction This article is an examination of the contestatory verbiage and subversive strategies inherent in Hope Eghagha’s play, Death, Not __________________________ *Etop AKWANG of the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State Email: [email protected] 67 EJOTMAS: EKPOMA JOURNAL OF THEATRE AND MEDIA ARTS 59 a Redeemer, which gazes back at the textual ideologies and credo of a dominant post-colonial and post-Negritudinist text, Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka. -
Amos Tutuola As a Quest Hero for Endogenous Africa: Actively
89 Francis B. Nyamnjoh Amos Tutuola as Prof Francis B. Nyamnjoh, a quest hero for Department of Social Anthropology, University endogenous Africa: of Cape Town; E-mail: nyamnjoh@ actively anglicising gmail.com; francis. [email protected] the Yoruba language DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.18820/24150479/ and yorubanising the aa52i1/KN ISSN:0587-2405 English language e-ISSN: 2415-0479 Acta Academica • 2020 52(1): First submission: 13 July 2019 89-98 Acceptance: 3 February 2020 © Creative Commons With Published: 28 August 2020 Attribution (CC-BY) Keynote Address at the 2019 SAALT and SAALS conference on indigenous languages in contemporary African societies, 30 June – 4 July, 2019, University of Pretoria Introduction Everything moves – people, things and ideas – in predictable and unpredictable ways. The circulation of things, ideas and people is not the monopoly of any particular group, community or society. Mobility and circulation lead to encounters of various forms, encounters that are (re)defining in myriad ways. If people, their things and their ideas circulate, it follows that their identities, personal or collective, move as well. And through encounters with others, mobile people are constantly having to navigate, negotiate, accommodate or reject difference (in things, ideas, practices and relations) in an open- ended manner that makes of them a permanent 90 Acta Academica / 2020:52(1) work in progress. No mobility or interaction with others leaves anyone, anything or any idea indifferent, even if such interactions are not always equal and do not always result in immediate, palpable or tangible change. No encounter in mobility results in uncontested domination or total passivity. -
Full Dissertation V3
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Utilitarian Pleasures: Print Culture and the Development of a Reading Public in Southwestern Nigeria A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Regan Buck Bardeen 2013 © Copyright by Regan Buck Bardeen 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Utilitarian Pleasures: The Production of Literature and the Development of a Reading Public in Southwestern Nigeria by Regan Buck Bardeen Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Edward Alpers, Co-chair Professor Andrew Apter, Co-chair Beginning with Christian missionary efforts to create a standardized Yoruba print language in the mid-nineteenth century, the Yoruba-speaking region of southwestern Nigeria was rapidly integrated into a network of print production that spanned the Atlantic Ocean. The emergence of a local reading public engendered the desire of administrative and religious stakeholder agencies to dictate the development of a print culture in southwestern Nigeria. These agencies saw their work on the production and dissemination of literature as a political and moral investment in the region, one that would pay dividends with the development of a Yoruba reading public whose worldview aligned with their own. This dissertation examines the strategies used by missionaries, philanthropists and government administrators to control how and what Nigerians read, ii from the colonial period through independent rule and up to the economic collapse of the 1980s. It argues that independent Nigerian governments echoed the desires of earlier agencies that literature be used to teach moral lessons or practical skills, with the aim being the education of a nationalized citizenry. -
Book of Proceedings
Book of Proceedings: the 6th Academic Conference of Hummingbird Publications and Research International on Paving Way for Africa Unique Opportunities for Sustainable Development in the 21st Century Vol.6 No.1 on 30th September, 2015- University of Ibadan Conference Centre,U.I, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria DIRECTORIAL CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES ON THE NIGERIAN STAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY OGUNGBESAN, OLUSEYI ABIODUN Department of Performing Arts, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria Abstract The Nigerian stage is an arena where human beings are presented in a cosmic totality, acting and reacting to forces around them and within them perceiving and being preceded by those interacting with them and by those in the audience who experience the enigma that is the common lot of humanity. It is not an ideal situation which is a very rare occurrence in the theatre where representations of what life should be is re-enacted. Since this ideal situations are not possible, the position of the director then becomes prerogative especially when his directorial styles and techniques are put into recognition for sustainable development on the Nigerian Stage in the 21st Century. As the Nigerian stage is inseparable from the Nigerian theatre so is there no stage without theatre. As play scripts differ, so also the concepts and techniques of each director. It is based on all these that this paper reviews the directorial concepts and techniques of directors on the Nigerian stage especially in the 21st century with the aim of comparing and analyzing their directorial skills and approaches. For the expression of the relationship between man, society and nature, the Nigerian theatre arose out of fundamental human needs in the dawn of human civilization and has continued to express those needs ever since, which is to say Nigerian theatre and drama originated with Nigerians themselves. -
International Journal of Arts and Humanities(IJAH) Bahir Dar- Ethiopia
IJAH 5(3), S/NO 18, JUNE, 2016 25 International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAH) Bahir Dar- Ethiopia Vol. 5(3), S/No 18, June, 2016:25-41 ISSN: 2225-8590 (Print) ISSN 2227-5452 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijah.v5i3.3 Literature and Development: Perspectives from Stylistics Obobolo, Vincent Department of English Studies University of Port Harcourt, Choba, Port Harcourt Rivers State, Nigeria Phone: +2348063231115 E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract This study seeks solution to the problem of underdevelopment. It examines how indigenous narrative knowledge and literary information could bring development to post-colonial societies and the human society. It focuses on the role of mediatory/ternary force in stylistic analysis of texts, and it attempts an analysis of selected African texts: Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-wine Drinkard, Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, and Niyi Osundare’s Waiting Laughters. The study establishes/re-establishes stylistics and post-structuralism’s mediatory/ternary force as significant determiners to the interpretation of literary discourse. The study finds that hidden/hitherto overlooked meanings and cultural information from literary texts could serve as tools for societal development. Key Words: Stylistics, Post-colonialism, African Literature, Development, Post- culturalism Introduction The essence of the study of style is to deduce meaning, which comes in various shades, in texts. Our intention here is not to examine the nature of the various shades of Copyright © IAARR 2016: www.afrrevjo.net/ijah Indexed African Journals Online (AJOL) www.ajol.info IJAH 5(3), S/NO 18, JUNE, 2016 26 meaning, but to keep in mind that the “functional theory of language, is one about meaning” (Akekue 1990, p. -
Book Reviews
African Studies Quarterly | Volume 14, Issues 1 & 2 | November 2013 BOOK REVIEWS Akin Adesokan. 2011. Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. xix, 230 pp. In Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics, Akin Adesokan considers how the processes of globalization and decolonization have shaped the careers of six postcolonial “artist– intellectuals” (p. xii): C. L. R. James, Caryl Phillips, and Arundhati Roy, known primarily as writers; and Ousmane Sembene, Tunde Kelani, and Jean-Pierre Bekolo, known mostly for filmmaking. In the preface and introduction, Adesokan makes the case that analysis of art in any form must consider the “aesthetic typology” (p. xi) that constructs its genre but then press beyond to consider how genres are contoured by global forces. He suggests the West African marketplace as a model: the marketplace is a social space where people and ideas mingle, a crossroads where the trajectories of locals and outsiders intersect and drift apart, and a site where commerce thrives. Conceived broadly, the marketplace brings artists of all stripes into a worldwide conversation with other artists, with political actors, and with larger publics. Yet, these actors must also attend to economic considerations that color the motives of creators and patrons and to globalization’s uneven spread of wealth and technologies, which shape genre expectations and force artists to make do with disparate local realities. Each of the remaining chapters considers the work of one artist–intellectual, melding careful readings of key works into discussions of the postcolonial contexts that shaped them— and showing how each oeuvre critiques those conditions. In “Toward the Seventh: The Pan- African Congress—Past, Present and Future” (1984) and other works of writer/activist C. -
Amos Tutuola and the Elusiveness of Completeness
Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien. No. 29/2015, Vol. 15, 1-47. Amos Tutuola and the Elusiveness of Completeness Francis B. Nyamnjoh Abstract This paper is a contribution to the unfinished business of transformation of colonial and apartheid ideologies on being human and being African that continue to shape how research is conceptualized, taught and practiced in universities across Africa. Endogenous epistemologies such as depicted by Amos Tutuola in his writings, despite their popularity with ordinary Africans and with elite Africans especially in settings away from the scrutinising prescriptive gaze of their western and westernised counterparts, are mainly dormant or invisible in scholarly circles where they are often ignored, caricatured or misrepresented through problematic categories that are actively and uncritically internalised and reproduced by a Eurocentric modern intellectual elite. Africans immersed in popular traditions of meaning-making are denied the right to think and represent their realities in accordance with the civilisations and universes they know best. Often, the ways of life they cherish are labelled and dismissed too eagerly as traditional knowledge by some of the very African intellectual elite they look up to for protection. The paper makes a case for space to be created for such sidestepped traditions of knowledge. It draws attention to Africa’s possibilities, prospects and emergent capacities for being and becoming in tune with its creativity and imagination. It speaks to the ‘frontier African’ at the crossroads and junctions of encounters, facilitating creative conversations and challenging regressive logics of exclusionary identities. The paper uses Tutuola’s stories to question dualistic assumptions about reality and scholarship, and to call for conviviality, interconnections and interdependence between competing knowledge traditions in Africa. -
Understan "The Palm-Wine Drinkard"
Understan "The Palm-Wine Drinkard" PATRICK COLM HOGAN ^'INCE ITS PUBLICATION in 1953, Amos Tutuola's first novel has received considerable critical attention. However, relatively little of this attention has been focused on interpreting the text in its details. When not debating the value of the work, critics have tended to devote themselves to largely non-interpretive source studies or linguistic analyses.' Most remaining critics- are formalist in orientation and stress the mythological or folk- loric universality of motifs found in Tutuola's book — a point noted by Irele (188). Much of this criticism is quite valuable. But it leaves virtually all the semantic and narrative details of the novel unexamined. It provides us a (largely uninterpreted) literary source for the fight with Death, but does not explain the significance of fight• ing Death with the ropes of yams; it tells us that annual sacrifice is a common folklore motif, but does not indicate why Tutuola links this to the color red, and so on. The common assumption of this work seems to be that the meanings of Tutuola's tales are self-evident; the sources of these tales, their language, or their relation to broader mythic patterns needs to be explained, but not their latent significance. Indeed, even at that, the vast ma• jority of Yoruba cultural references in the work not been identified, let alone analyzed. Moreover, all this is closely related to the view that the book is unstructured, "little more than a cleverly woven string of loosely connected episodes," in Bernth Lindfors words (Folklore ^g). But, in fact, the stories which constitute The Palm-Wine Drinkard are not mere semantically obvious fancies with little symbolic or social depth.