Wole Soyinka and the construction of authoritative memory Yes

Although Wole Soyinka told Lewis Nkosi in the early 1960s, I dont believe I have any obligation to enlighten, to instruct, to teach...[1], by the 1990s his work as witness of brutal and bloody events in Nigeria does clearly serve a role of enlightening and teaching both international readers not present at those events, and fellow Nigerians, whose collective memory tends to be short[2]. Soyinkas writings in the 1970s and 1980s translated a Nigerian world and cosmology in universal terms, and provided a diary of personal and collective memories of the era. It could be said that Soyinkas approach foreshadowed Edward Saids later call for universalism and a human heritage that embraced the emergence of a new intellectual and political conscience [3]. The paper looks at a range of Soyinkas writings to locate the content and stylistic devices he deploys to elevate his work into an authoritative opus of political memory of a country and a continent. It is argued that Soyinka has been rewarded by the Nobel committee not only for his ability with words but also for his ability to remember. Remembering has been the call Soyinka has followed. Just as Ogun straddles the past and the future with the ability of disintegration and retrieval, just as Castro links the past and the future with the promise of revolutionary will [4], so must Soyinka bear the burden of constructing the memories for a continent that cannot do it alone, for the benefit of future generations.

[1] Interview with Lewis Nkosi (1962) reproduced in Dennis Duerden & Cosmo Pieterse (1972, p. 173), African Writers Talking. Heinemann: London. [2] Wole Soyinka (1996, p.66). The Open Sore of a Continent. Oxford University Press: London. [3] Edward Said (1994, pp.xiii-xxvii). Culture and imperialism. Vintage: London. [4] Wole Soyinka (1988, p. 119). Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. New Horn Press: Ibadan.

The Symbolism of Evil in Wole Soyinkas Tragedies

Yes

As a concept, evil has been variously understood, and has been examined in relation to Soyinkas drama in varying degrees, the most common being the aspect concerning the individual already embodying it. This paper, however, aims at probing into the question of evil at the very instant of its emergence, prior to the stage when the carrier is already burdened with it, ready to be done away with. The exploration begins by following the insightful philosophical reflections the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, has brought to bear on the issue. The aim is to see how the understanding of evil in its tripartite symbolic relation as stain, sin and guilt, that is, as a linguistic act, would enhance the interpretation of Soyinkas three tragic texts: Death and the Kings Horseman, The Strong Breed, and The Swamp Dwellers.

Paper Title: Acting Soyinka: An Actor trainers dilemma Yes

Performing Wole Soyinka may be a trainee actors millstone. Soyinkas plays present his lead characters in a collage of traits: vibrant, uncanny, difficult, esoteric, obscure, uncommon, ridiculous, callous, loud, etc. A major challenge may actually be his investment of lines in his main characters and this obviously presents the actor within a rough terrain, thus needing guidance to emerge unscathed. This actor is motivated by the need to present Soyinka as a departmental production or a practical examination piece which ultimately not only provides a fertile ground in cultivating his act but also earns him pass marks. This paper is an excursion/episodic chronicling of an actor trainer/director in a Nigerian university. The paper attempts a critical examination of selected texts performed at a Nigerian university while saliently remarking on the challenges of acting Soyinka and the dilemma which the actor trainer finds himself. The actor who finds Soyinka in most of these experiences may remark: to act or not to act! However, the paper poses: Is Soyinka difficult to read? Is he a puzzle to unravel? Is he too huge to ACT? The paper reconciles that acting Soyinka is a true test of an actor. Thus, the paper submits that it would not be out of place for other actor trainers to encourage acting Soyinka in Nigerian universities. In acting Soyinka, the actor discovers himself and the world around him. The actor finds a veritable playfield to voice

his actions and understand speech. The paper acknowledges acting Soyinka as difficult but submits that it is not an insurmountable ACTION to undertake.

Wole Soyinkas appropriation of Friedrich Nietzsche in The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite (1973) Yes The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite (1973), written by the Nobel Prize winning Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka and commissioned by the National Theatre in London, enacts a convergence of European, African and ancient traditions. Though this convergence has been studied extensively for its significance for Soyinkas postcolonial drama, I want to extend the analysis to cover another influence that is often invoked but has as yet never been scrutinised: the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Often Soyinkas intellectual debt to Nietzsche is characterized as a simple appropriation of his Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy and its transposition more or less intact onto his own intellectual heritage. This paper will show that it was in fact much more of a two-way process, with Soyinka opting out of Nietzsches legacy as much as he opts in. The point of departure will be Wole Soyinkas essay The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy (1969), his most extensive discussion of Nietzsches thought. The paper will explore the dynamics of Soyinkas appropriation and address how Soyinka became interested in Nietzsche, particularly in the Dionysiac philosophy of The Birth of Tragedy (1872). By contextualizing Soyinkas revision of the Bacchae within the broader resurgence of Nietzsches popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, this paper will provide a fuller account of how Soyinkas Bacchae engages critically with Nietzsches philosophy and will contribute to a more complex understanding of Soyinkas place in the intellectual history of the mid-twentieth century.

ABSTRACT

ADAPTING WOLE SOYINKAS PLAYS FOR CLASSROOM LESSON ON AFRICAN CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT: THE CREATIVE SCHEME FOR THE LION AND THE JEWEL AND DEATH AND THE KINGS HORSEMAN. Yes

Wole Soyinkas plays are as relevant today as it was yesterday, dismissing scholarly opinions that engagement in Soyinkas writing is already exhausted. Soyinkas dramatic writing display a unique environment for the celebration of African cultural life and ways of doing things. His texts are woven out of deep knowledge of indigenous language and cultural idioms. His plays are peopled by characters who emerge from the local situation and experience. The aesthetics of traditional dances, songs, and displays occupy central position in typical Soyinka dramaturgy .The topicality of his plays especially its preeminent celebration of African culture and world view represented by the Yoruba society offer useful lessons to the young ones as the African continent keeps admitting changing dynamics in her cultural and social environment as a result of the serious encroachment of globalization and its foreign cultural nuances. How can this lesson be derived from the mature textual surface of its existence and translated into educational materials for children of junior elementary classes in the Nigerian school system? What methodology and creative scheme best suit this kind of initiative? Are plays written for adult readership capable of being turned into lesson models for young persons in the society? What outcomes will such experiment produce? This paper proposes a creative thematic scheme for using the techniques of drama in-education to teach Soyinkas plays.

Fractal Complexity in Wole Soyinkas The Interpreters: A Pluridisciplinary Exploration Yes

Abstract

While my elaborate search yielded 739 scholarly citations and 69 scholarly book reviews on Wole Soyinkas book that won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, The Interpreters (1965), no systematic analysis has been done on the text, even though such potential exists. This study is an attempt to fill this gap. Specifically, I employ the mathematical concept of Fractal Dimension and Complexity Theory to explore the idea of spectrum progressing from more orderly to less orderly or to pure disorder in the text. This called for the utilization of the Pluridisciplianry approach that helped me to mix linguistics and mathematical approachesmore precisely, Linguistic Presupposition and Fractal Methodology. The results generated after the MATLAB computer runs suggest that the combination of negative and positive feedback loops, which form the basis of several African knowledge systems, also form a key mechanism of general self-organizing systems discussed in The Interpreters.

ABSTRACT AFRICAN LITERARY DRAMA VERSUS POPULAR MEDIA: A CRITICAL REASSESSMENT OF DEMOCRATIC ADVOCACY AND LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVES IN SOYINKAS DEATH AND THE KINGS HORSEMAN AND THE STRONG BREED

Yes
Africa keeps parading leadership failure for years confirming the popular assertion that the continents problem is clearly and substantially failure in leadership. Recent scenarios point to a new direction in people-led good governance advocacy, opposition to dictatorship and the sacking of failed leaders aptly captured as the Arab Spring uprising. The massive casualty figures of this new pro-democracy crusade, the topicality of this development and its implication on the future of the continent demands a closer attention than it is currently receiving. Beyond this, new questions are beginning to rise on the functional viability of African literature especially dramatic writing in projecting a revolutionary credo and voice strong enough to generate change action in the continent. Some scholars are already announcing the failure of the literary media in communicating change. The ascendancy of new media in provoking and nurturing successful revolutionary activities is already enjoying popular praise and appraisal. A counter-narrative of the role of dramatic writing and literature generally in promoting equitable leadership through its polemics is beginning to form. Has the African dramatist failed, abandoned his vocation or has he relinquished his position to the onslaught of digital media which takes full credit for the current democratic revolution in the continent? What is Soyinkas position in this discourse? How does his voice re-echo in the democratic space in the current dispensation? This paper is focused on a critical reassessment of Soyinkas poetics of leadership and nationalism using two of his plays, Death and the Kings Horseman and The Strong Breed.

The Great Silence: Soyinka and Senghor Yes

This paper juxtaposes Wole Soyinkas poem Dedication for Moremi with L. S. Senghors poem Elegy of the Circumcized. These two poems, written by writers who come from the same region West Africaare classified under the same theme, Early Passage. The paper reveals the silencing of the African female as portrayed in Soyinkas poem, and the projection of the male voice as presented in Senghors poem. Using a Postcolonial theory approach in the interpretation of the poems, the paper shows that the woman symbolises nature which is dominated, exploited, and suppressed by man. The tenets of Postcolonial theory that are applied in the analysis of the poems are (mis)representation and otherness. Unlike the female in Soyinkas poem whose future duties are dictated for her by her father, the male in Senghors poem chooses what he wants to achieve as an adult. The vegetable images used in Soyinkas poem are a metaphor for vulnerability palm tree, yams, podlings, peppers green, tendril, sea while the phallic images tall grass, night of phallus, straight edge, compass and sextant, fingers, serpent, reeds, wings used in Senghors poem are metaphors for strength, conquest, heroism and male sexuality. The argument in this paper also raises the idea of the subaltern whose situation pushes Gayatri Spivak to wonder: Can the Subaltern Speak? Speaking becomes something that is attributed only to a privileged few, the male. To speak is to command authority and authority is not given to everyone. This paper questions gender differences in the African society.

Wole Soyinka: identity, authenticity, exclusiveness Yes

Wole Soyinka the first African Nobel prize laureate in literature (1986) is a fan of Yoruba God, Ogun. His contribution to the development of African literature and theatre is outstanding. In Russia Wole Soyinka is well known as a poet and writer and less as a dramatist and publicist. Evolution of his looks about a man and society, personality and state, about Africa and the world became the reflection of a process of search of identity and in a great deal depended on a situation in his native Nigeria (The Man Died: Prison Notes, ": the Years of Childhood" Isara: A Voyage around Essay, Ibadan, "The Open Sore of a Continent: a Personnel Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis"). His creative work is considered to be a complexity of ideas and experience. His interest in acting and mystification provokes a reader to the game. W. Soyinka treats a role of writer as calling and obedience, as a high mission. A Word lives in his works, like trans-migrant abiku, on the border of the worlds. It comes from the depth of memory, texture of which contains individual and collective experience, tradition and modernity. Soyinkas texts is a confluence rational and emotional, unity of myth (ancient and African) and history.

W. Soyinka is "reared" by milk of two "mothers: African and European and, nevertheless, he kept his authenticity and cultivates it. His language is universal, though he talks with his auditory in his own language. Gene substratum of his works is difficult, but, due to the accumulation of ideas, the writer creates his own myths, which synthesizes spiritual experience and heritage of humanity.

NOTE: This writer is Russian

The Politics of Happiness in Africa: Its Betrayal in Life and the Nation in Doris Lessings The Grass is Singing

Yes
Twenty years after Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize, the award was handed out to Doris Lessing. Brought up in Southern Rhodesia, she is often categorized as one of the African writers. This paper will explore the politics of feeling, especially the happiness, in her The Grass is Singing (1950) with close reading of feminist and cultural studies. Soon after Lessings prize winning, Mamoto Suzuko argues Lessings motive of writing is to find the way of narratives for happiness regardless of age and sex from the universal perspective. Yet, I will argue it is not pursuit, but betrayal of happiness that Lessing narrates. Moreover, the happiness described in her writing shows that the feeling of happiness is a gendered and racialized construction; happiness works as a grand narrative in a society, and pursuing and reproducing that feeling is encouraged in individual life. The happiness of Mary Tuner, who is killed by her African native servant, is wrecked when she married a poor farmer in the suburb of Southern Rhodesia. When the promise of the happiness is betrayed, she goes mad and monstrous with her intimate relationship with the servant. In this novel, the happiness is the place of crisis, where the monstrosity is created. Giving narratives of the betrayed happiness, Lessing successfully visualizes the place of crisis at which the normative happiness conflicts with the individual one. Once the happiness fails, the responsibility of the

failure to be happy is reduced to the individuals inability to follow the certain happiness.

Global peace in the view of religion No Abstract This paper will discussed the challenge of global peace from the view of religion. Firstly, peace is conceptualized with respect to order: defense of people in their person their things and their deals . In respect of each of these challenges the role of religion is examined as potentially positive or negative depending on its connection with politics. The analysis is then extended to order with justice. Special consideration is paid to the social contract as a base of the publicpolitical society. In this connection some explanation are made regarding the theocracy vs. democracy argument. How far could each of these systems be seen as a possible danger to peace and if so, is there room for reconciliation? The second part of the paper starts with a conceptualization of human rights as essential human interests sheltered by law. These center interests are based on human self-respect as such, while entailing certain major freedoms and entitlements that everyone ought to enjoy.

Abstract:

Dialoguing land and African identity in two selected post-2000 novels Yes

The paper critically examines African identity and human rights awareness in Tsitsi Dangarembgas The Book of Not (2006) and Brian Chikwavas Harare North (2009) within the context of Zimbabwes land invasions. In Zimbabwe, land has given rise to contentions on issues of race, class, ethnic, political affiliation and national identities. The paper argues that land and identity are human rights that give people a cheque into their future. It contends that issues of land must be dealt with using a holistic approach, with meaningful public participation by all stakeholders. The rationale is that land touches on all aspects of everyones lives, influencing peoples perceptions of identities and destinies. The paper further observes that blanket blame on the government alone and personalities, will not solve the problem in a positive way. Limiting the debate to politicians and holders of power alone, demonising sections

of the media, hounding the opposition, and imposing restrictions on views that should be discussed and debated, could kill democracy. This paper adopts the African frameworks of Humwe (Chigara, 2004) and Unhu-Ubuntu-Botho Pathways (Rukuni, 2007) for greater social integration through meaningful public participation on issues of land and belonging explored in the two selected novels. The novels strongly suggest that in dealing with land issues, cultural and historical memories are critical for people to confront the dark areas surrounding land invasions and identity. Through such democratic approaches strong African societies can be nurtured.

ABSTRACT RISKS AS A SPUR TO CREATIVITY: SOYINKA, ACHEBE, AND MPHAHLELE: A BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF THEIR ACHIEVEMENNTS Yes The triad of Soyinka, Achebe, and Mphahlele is memorable in two ways that need celebration; all three near-contemporaries risked their lives in their countries for political reasons at the beginning of their literary careers; all three have gradually been acknowledged as literary colossi both in their countries and elsewhere. Thus, interestingly, both in their specificities and commonalities, the stories of the three men are almost mythical; collectively, they look back to Shelleys Prometheus Unbound. It is as though Mphahleles distressful one-way exit permit to leave his home (South Africa) in the early 1960s propelled him later to unexpected heights in his career; that Soyinkas imprisonment in his own Nigeria between 1967 and 1969 eventually enabled him to release later untold amounts of creative energy. Similarly, Achebes self-appointed roving ambassadorial post for the failed infamous Igbo state of Biafra in Nigeria from 1967 to 1970 eventually necessitated in him a rather sombre assessment of African politics. This discussion offers a respectful outline of their accomplishments in the way they have presented Africa both to Africans and non-Africans, which have prompted imminent commentators of African literature to celebrate these African

literary stalwarts. MacKenzie (2010: 205) describes Mphahlele as South Africas literary statesman par excellence ... the countrys senior cultural ambassador. Izvebaye (2009: 48) designates Achebe as the old wise man of African literature. Soyinka, it is now well-known, is the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1986). Part of the citation of the award says that Soyinka, in a wide cultural perspective fashions the drama of existence. The overarching objective of the discussion then is to suggest the extent to which, in the changed world of the 21st century, the ideals these icons stood for may still inspire current and prospective contributors to their literary heritage, may further develop African literatures. Keywords: Risks, ideals, Africa, African literature and politics

Soyinkas Autobiographies: the making of a mercenary artist

Yes

This paper examines the socio-cultural and political conditions that have shaped the nature and function of literature in Africa through the example of Wole Soyinkas autobiographies. I argue that Soyinkas autobiographies provide a profound understanding of the context that has produced the African writer; that African literature reacts to, and attempts to capture. I also examine how the autobiographies also outline Soyinkas path to the Nobel price by highlighting his political commitments and entanglements, which I suggest is one major attraction that Soyinka has to the Nobel committee, and to the world at large. I particularly focus on last years declaration by the Nobel committee that it was awarding the price to Mario Vargas Llosa for intervening in the affairs of state. I conclude that by becoming more and more open about its political preferences, the committee allows us to look back at Soyinka, African writing and the overall politics of international recognition.

Writing in the shadow of the laureate: Aesthetics of appropriation and stageability of drama. ReReading Wole Soyinka and Bate Besong

Yes

A systematic appraisal of the plays of Bate Besong reveals an intrinsic relationship with the dramaturgical products of Wole Soyinka. This correlation immediately establishes the extent of influence and inspiration that the Nigerian playwright of Yoruba origin has had across the globe and especially on the efforts of budding as well as reputable men of letters. The multi dimensional focus of this paper is to demonstrate ways by which Soyinka

impinges on the literary craftsmanship of Bate Besong and also how both playwrights, through their manier de fair, raise issues of stageability of drama. This experiment further shows ways by which both playwrights deconstruct the norms of dramatic composition there by relocating their drama beyond the purview of traditional dramaturgy which relies on stage performance to come alive. As a matter of fact, this paper attempts an analysis of how the poetics of Soyinka influence Bate Besong and how their works demonstrate potentials in the domain of closet drama which privileges reading over performance. This experimentation is responsible for either

the plausible view of text as performance, (approach as an asset) or the disdainful rejection of drama as unstageable(approach as liability) Based on the theory of aestheticism, this paper, it must be affirmed, is not against

the ability to stage the plays of Soyinka and Bate Besong as it is an invitation to view their dramatic productions as performance given the challenge they pose with regards to stage adaptations.