Overview

Ibadan International Conference on African Literature (ICAL)



Department of English, University of Ibadan




THEME: THE MUSE AS ARCHIVIST: AFRICAN LITERATURE AS ALTERNATIVE HISTORY






Date: July 3-6, 2008.




Download ICAL 2008 Poster



Introduction:
Documentary of History Literature continues to serve us as universal language, primarily because the general human community subscribes to its aesthetic and spiritual experience. Long before the age of writing, our forebears found a quick ally in its oral form, which in turn came to impact substantially on the role of the traditional "remembrancer" and other succeeding generations in the community and stately courts of African indigenous society.

In spite of the shifting contexts between the age of the quill and the cursor, literature's fidelity to archiving and documenting social and historical processes remains unwavering. Indeed, literature in contemporary society has become a highly contested space for contending interest and social groups for affirmation and identity validation. The African experience in genre definition suggests that in documenting the social history of groups and nations, vested interests contested for the soul of literature, sometimes, succeeding in wrong-twisting its narrative tongue for exclusionary projects, especially in relation to biography and autobiography writing, besides the threat it poses to History-qua-history. Evidence of this tension dates as far back as the institutions of the court poet, troubadour and minstrelsy practices of (sometimes lineage groups of) the griot, maroka, mbogini, and akewi, through the western Sudan to the southern cone of the continent. Musicians and music makers have had to grapple with this situation in different ways.


THEME: THE MUSE AS ARCHIVIST: AFRICAN LITERATURE AS ALTERNATIVE HISTORY


It is precisely the diversity of possibilities afforded literature as an important documentary of social and historical processes in the African continent that the Conference seeks to explore.

The different phases of literary practice and historical documentation to be explored include:

  • Oral Literature

  • Written Literature

  • Fiction and Non-Fiction Dichotomy

  • Documentaries, Theory and Practice

  • Literature in Nation Building (Role Modeling)

  • Modern African Literature and the Digital Interface.


It is hoped that this structure will allow for a chronological construction of the theme in the different regions of the continent. The first phase of (a) oral literature will serve as background to how literature aids historical documentation. It will also be integrated into the style by which this is accomplished, especially through the exploration of the earliest oral- inflected modes of the literary and historical documentation. The next stage represents the two phases of post-colonial encounter in (b) Written Literature, and (c) Modem African Literature.

The conference will seek to identify the overlapping features of the different phases both in style and thematic concern. Beyond this, it will also buttress sub-themes and cross-cutting themes of the different phases in the continent.

Sub-Themes:

  • Orality, History and Memory

  • Literature as a Communicative Process

  • Genres as Documentary

  • Auto/Biography: Agenda for Endangered Gender

  • Literature and the Post-Colonial Encounter

  • Electronic Post-modernism and the Recovery of Memory

  • Post-Modernism and Memory Re-(De-) Construct

  • Literature and Censorship

  • Readers and Social Reaction to Literature

  • Relationship between Literature and other disciplines: Linguistics, Sociology, Psychology, Religion, Visual Art, Art history, Etc.

  • Exile & Site of African Writing / History

  • Child Soldiers & African Writing / History

  • Myth vs. History

  • Myth as History / Literature

  • Divination as Literature / History

  • History, Literature, & Interface

  • Women Writers & History

  • Oral-Written Interface & History

  • Diaspora Writers & African (Memory) History

Without prejudice to the individuality of the sub-themes, the conference will also highlight the significant cross-cutting themes over the period.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

  • Grand Narrative

  • Identity Formation

  • Deification and Reification of Power

  • Dominance, Marginality and Counter-Discursivity

  • Gender and the Representation of the Female Body in Literary Text

Deadline for submission of Abstracts (max. of 250 words), May 7, 2008.

Closing date for submission of full conference papers of accepted abstracts, June 6, 2008
Accepted Papers to be submitted electronically using the APA or MLA style/format, double spacing. Font/point: Times New Roman/12; 15-25pp.

Keynote Speakers:


Lead Paper Presenter:

  • Professor Femi Osofisan, FNAL, Dept.of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

  • Professor Mary E.M. Kolawole, Dept. Of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife/National Open University, Lagos, Nigeria.

  • Professor Ropo Sekoni, Director, Institute of African and
    African American Studies, Lincoln University, NY.

  • Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, Dept. English, University of Lagos, lagos, Nigeria.


Special Guest of Honor:


Chief Host:

  • Professor Olufemi Bamiro, Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.


Host:

  • Professor Lekan Oyeleye, Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

All Enquiries on hotel accommodation, etc., should be directed to:

Convener:
Ademola O. DASYLVA
Department of English,
University of Ibadan,
Ibadan, Nigeria.
E-mail: a.dasylva@ibadanculturalgroup.org 
OR a.dasylva@mail.ui.edu.ng.
+234 (0) 802 350 4755

L.O.C. members:

  • Dr. Remi Raji-Oyelade

  • Dr. Ayo Kehinde

  • Dr. Sola Olorunyomi

  • Dr. Akin Odebunmi

  • Mr. Ayodeji Shittu


Registration Fee:

  • Europe & North America: US$50

  • Africa: NGR N3, 500/OR Equivalent

  • Postgraduate Students NGR 1000

Registrants are to bring their registration fee to the venue of the Conference.



(c) 2008 Department of English, University of Ibadan