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Papers by Elizabeth Olaoye

Body Studies Journal, 2020

This paper presents a feminist literary analysis of the gendered embodiment of religion, trauma a... more This paper presents a feminist literary analysis of the gendered embodiment of religion, trauma and shame in Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms. Set in the Northern part of Nigeria known for conservative Islam, the novel depicts female characters who carry marks of religion and trauma, with the attendant shame of transgression, on their bodies. These factors combine to make these women "speakerly texts," who speak against the will of those who embody these conflicting ideologies. The idea of the body as "speakerly texts" is germane here since silenced women's bodies encode and transmit messages that their voices would not. As their voices become hushed, their bodies violently react in a language that is speakerly. Adopting Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s phrase for categorizing certain African American literary texts and juxtaposing it with Michel Foucault's idea of the body as a site of struggle, this paper seeks to examine the Muslim woman's body as both a place of memory and of unconscious resistance in Northern Nigeria. We will demonstrate that religion, trauma and shame are embodied in these characters in a gendered way. By concentrating on the bodies of these characters via a close reading, we show that Ibrahim reveals how a misogynic society forces a woman to internalize several conflicting ideologies at once, creating individuals that are layered both in memory and reality, and whose bodies speak in the language of unconscious desires and repressed memory.

Transcultural Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper examines the inscriptions of the harsh realities of the Nigerian civil war on women u... more This paper examines the inscriptions of the harsh realities of the Nigerian civil war on
women using a selected text, Roses and Bullets, written by the prolific author, Akachi
Adimora-Ezeigbo. One of the objectives of the study is to explore the various abuses
a woman’s body is subjected to, and the role the woman plays in transforming her
body from an inordinate object to a site of power, of survival and of hope. In feminist
discourses, the issue of the woman’s body is relevant in the explication of texts. The
paper will adopt the feminist theory of embodiment to critique the relationship of
women’s bodies to Geographies. Since stories are located in time, and since time
explains many important historical events like war, we carry out a textual analysis of
the exploitation of the female body during the Nigerian civil war, with one of the
findings being that women respond readily to healing, as they are willing to forgive,
put past abusive experiences behind them, and look forward to a better future.
Keywords: Women; Nigerian Civil War; Violence; Bodies; Powe

This paper examines the blending of Nigerian magical elements with science fiction in the writing... more This paper examines the blending of Nigerian magical elements with science fiction in the writings of Nnedi Okorafor.

Writing Contemporary Nigeria: How Sefi Atta Illuminates African Culture and Tradition edited by Walter Collins

Unsettling Whiteness

Abstract This chapter examines the new positions of whiteness in contemporary Nigerian fiction as... more Abstract This chapter examines the new positions of whiteness in contemporary Nigerian fiction as a manifestation of the changing roles of White characters in post independent Nigeria. It also reflects ever-changing attitudes towards perceptions of whiteness in an era of globalisation. In order to do this, the paper explores the positioning of whiteness in Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, and compares this with the images of whiteness in Chinua Achebe’s colonial novels: Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Through this comparative study, the paper seeks to unearth new attitudes to whiteness in contemporary Nigerian society as a manifestation of a deliberate desire to situate whiteness within a disadvantaged position in a black society. Key Words: Nigeria, Adichie, Achebe, whiteness, postcolonial, Biafra, Other, colonial, literature, African literature.

Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies. Vol 4 (1) 2013 , 2013

This paper addresses the issue of overlaps in the writings of two women of African descent as a ... more This paper addresses the issue of overlaps in the writings of two women of African descent as a manifestation of a shared cultural past. Examining Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory in comparison with Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, the paper seeks to draw attention to paradoxical manifestations of nostalgia in the artistries of these two authors. Drawing on Hutcheon’s concept of paradoxical nostalgia, the issue of the woman’s body as a site of memory is addressed, proposing the nostalgic characteristic of memory as a connecting device in the artistries of these two authors. The paper gleans Africanness from the works of these two authors not just in the content of their memories as evident in their narratives, but also in their shared style of looking at the past in a paradoxical nostalgic way.
Keywords:
paradox, nostalgia, Edwidge Danticat, memory, Hutcheon, Ngozi Adichie, past, Nigeria, Haiti

Talks by Elizabeth Olaoye

Africa Book Link, 2018