1,720,962 research outputs found
African Writer As Mediator: A Study of Ayo Dada’s The King’s Clarion Call
No full textWriters in Africa have different roles to play depending on their ideologies, environments and maturity. From preoccupation with the oral backgrounds of Africa, most writers have matured towards representing global issues in their themes. From Amos Tutuola to Ayo Dada, the quests of African writers are sociological and may not be removed from the amplification of the challenges in their environments. The challenges of African writers are dynamic as they are confronted by different realities within the resolution of one socio-political problem and the emergence of another. Writers are, therefore, social crusaders, teachers and preachers. Keywords: Africa, writing, fiction, social, crusader, socio-political, mediation, creativity.
Performance as Address: The Interface between Folks and the Rulers
Get PDFIndigenous people had a peculiar way of measuring the pulse of the society before the advent of writing. Equally tending towards what could be considered the gadfly roles of the media in modern society is the prevalent of the same measure through which authorities could be put in check by the folks when the machinery of governance seems to be derailing. A demonstration outside the home of the personality may reveal his excesses during the passing years. Through such performances such as Oramfe and Igbaghare both in Ondo State, the voiceless could air their views and criticise the machinery of governance without any fear of reprisal attack from the aggrieved. This paper considers such a critical role deployed by the folks at the arena to be instrumental in the maintenance of cohesion and filial bond over the years. Keywords: orality, interface, sanction, performance, folk, institutions, traditional, address
Redefining Oral African Literature
Get PDF Indigenous art is a peculiar medium. Everything about the human society could be documented, studied, displayed and enjoyed through this. Art, in this sense, encompasses all things that may enhance the human situation. The study examines art and the use to which indigenous people made of it prior to writing using aesthetics as a tool of analysis. The study reveals that art amplifies the glorious, the ennobling as well as the drawbacks from the attainment of lofty goals. Such goals are the ultimate for the evolvement of every society. It is fundamental that art be made a crucial component of human existence if humanity were to evolve, surpass the level of bestiality, and attain a level of decorum that may be germane to peace and progress. It is imperative that indigenous art be studied further in order to unravel the wealth of meaning and possibly the artistic force that might have informed such large scale presence in indigenous societies.
Keywords: Oral, Art, Performance, Indigenous, Festival
Signs in indigenous tales: a semiotic analysis
Get PDFTranslation and interpretation may be all that are needed to break the bulwark surrounding meanings of folktales in some remote cultures. Using a combination of Peircean’s semiotic objects, representamen and interpretant; Henrik Gottlieb’s«semiotically based taxonomy of translation» finding expression in the concept of time and space, the paper progresses from intra semiotic translation which involves translation within«sign system» to«inter semiotic translation» which is«translation between sign systems» to unravel the wealth of meaning in the Ifa corpus. Even when no semantic significance may be found among the semiotic objects, the signs and the interpretant, there exists a nexus among the objects, the signs and the meanings to an adept in the fieldof folklore in the environment. Consequently, one appreciates the ingenuity of indigenous people in fashioning semiotic objects, signs and interpretations that could withstand the challenges of time and space. These signs record the philosophical ethos ofthe society with the intention of preserving such and rendering them periodically at the arena. Folktales may be better appreciated when narrators provide insight at the background which could further illuminate other nondescript areas in the course of such performances
Orality in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure: Diachronic Approach
Get PDFThe paper unveils some salient issues in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure in order to further illuminate the obscure nature of the web of meanings in the novel through recourse to psychoanalysis and the place of orality in the explication of the behaviour of Jude. The search for meaning may take the form of review of the text as well as the application of psychoanalysis in order to provide a scientific backing to the claims that are made therein. The unwritten historical scripts of the people of Wessex are also considered as instrumental in the semantic import of the text. The paper sums up the challenges that Jude faces to be borne out of the deep and dark level of the unconscious typifying the family lineage. It is, therefore, the inability of Jude to cross the boundary between his own ego and that of the family that is responsible for his inability to live a normal life and to this, the oral environment provides a clue
Beyond Aesthetics: Indigenous Festivals in the Age of Internet
Get PDFThe wave of digital spread in relation to festivals especially masquerades across the world may be the genesis of an emerging culture. It is not outlandish for viewers to be fascinated with such performances. Dwelling on the strength of the claim by Asha, et al (41) especially the claim on “myth as producer of cultureâ€, it is not out of place that new myth may be fashioned particularly one that gives strength to the emergence of masquerades in the new world where the digital invasion is rife. This is because there is no point in time that new myths cannot be generated. It is equally true that the proponents of myths may not be conscious of the fact that they are engendering new myths at the outset but time and conscious devotion to the tenets of the new culture may enliven such myths to the point that they confer potency on the new practices. With the aid of aesthetics as a theoretical standpoint, the paper concludes that what was earlier restricted in terms of locale and audience may have become globalised with the aid of the digital breakthrough.
Keywords: Aesthetics, Indigenous, Masquerades, Internet bound, Performanc
Aesthetics in “Oluwen” Cleansing Performance
Get PDFThe paper dwells on the tragic personality, the scapegoat, whose role is tied to the redemption of the people and cleansing of the land by metaphorically sacrificing himself during “““Olofun”gbogho””. This is another act in the fertility drama and it is instrumental in the regeneration of the land. The tragic hero is central to the cleansing, fertility and other allied ceremonies. The paper attempts an examination of the functions of the scapegoat during ““Olofun”gbogho”” and situates the tragic hero within a selfless desire to redeem the land from accumulated sins. The tool of analysis is aesthetics and the paper uncovers the underlying imperatives in the performance and situates them within art and the fulfilment of the people’s desire for entertainment
Greek and Indigenous African Festivals: A Comparative Study
Get PDFThe association of indigenous Africans with nature is not a peculiarity. In the Greek world, the Dionysus festival was a compendium of various festivals and were celebrated at the dawn of civilization in Athens and the Anthesteria was considered the oldest of such festivals. Many days of the year were dedicated to the celebration of the festivals. Using aesthetics as a springboard, the study examines the psychological and philosophical undercurrents of festivals in the two cultural environments and concludes that entertainment and religious reasons were the underlying imports of the performances of festivals the world over.
Keywords: Aesthetics, Eje, Masquerades, Festivals, Performance, Costume
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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