Chinyere G. Okafor has been a significant force and voice in Interdisciplinary Studies through the intersection of the following: African Literature and Theatre, Women, Gender & Feminism, Anthopology and Traditional Drama. Her scholarship engages African, European, North American and the global African diasporic experiences. The depth of her work, especially in the broad areas of women & gender, culture and society, is attested to by her current position as the Chair of Women’s Studies and Religion, and Director of the Center for Women’s Studies, Wichita State University (WSU), Wichita, Kansas. As a scholar and teacher, Prof Okafor has taught and mentored many students at WSU, the University of Southern Maine, Portland ME, USA; Montgomery College Rockville, Maryland, USA; Cornell University, USA where she was a postdoctoral fellow; University of Swaziland, Southern Africa; and the University of Benin, University of Port-Harcourt, and the University of Lagos, Akoka, all in Nigeria. In all of these places and others not mentioned, she contributed immensely to extending the frontiers of knowledge and her extensive publications have not only questioned but also shaped positions in those fields.

Prof Okafor (Image courtesy of Wichita State University)

Okafor is also a prolific playwright, poet and short story writer whose works explore the rich tapestry of African culture, address race, gender and class issues, postcolonial African social concerns and realities, and generally present her as one of the leading voices in contemporary African and global scholarship on the intersection between African culture, its Western counterpart and globalism.

A festschrift in honour of this distinguished academic will afford contributors the rare opportunity to both dialogue with her oeuvre of works and provide a unique platform for many of her students and readers to further appreciate the depth of her scholarship and the extent of her contribution to the advancement of knowledge in her chosen field of research. As such, we welcome contributions in any area of Prof Okafor’s published research and works some of which are listed below:

-Brigadiers and Credos. Port Harcourt: Pearl Publishers, 2018.
-African Ikeji Mask Festivals Aro and Diaspora: Gender, Performance and Communication. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2017.
-Ikeji Festival Theater of the Aro and Diaspora: Gender, Mask and Communication. Lagos: University of Lagos Press, 2015.
– “Diary of An American Woman” Irinkerindo: a journal of African Migration. Issue 7, 2014: 76-111
-New Toyi Toyi (Nigerian edition) Kraft Books Limited, Ibadan, Nigeria, 2012.
-In Her Own Voice: Agnes Okafor Tells her Stories, 2010
-It Grows In Winter and Other Poems. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008.
-The New Toyi Toyi (play). Trenton: Africa World Press, 2007.
-“Beyond Child Abuse.”  In Eye to Eye: Women Practicing Development Across Cultures.  Eds. Schench, Celeste, and Susan Perry. London: Zed Press, 2001: 259-276.
-He Wants To Marry Me Again and Other Stories. Ibadan: Kraftgriots, 1996.
-The Lion And The Iroko. Ibadan: Kraftgriots, 1996.
-From Earth’s Bed Chamber: A Collection of Poems. Ibadan: Kraftgriots, 1996.
-Campus Palavar and Other Plays. Ibadan: Kraftgriots, 1995.

For Okafor’s over 60 publications and citations of her works, go to Wichita State University website.  For more plays, stories, etc., go to www.chiwrite.com

Topics of contributions may include but are not limited to:

• African drama and theatre and its focus on gender issues
• Women, social change and cultural practices
• African gender and contemporary feminist ideologies
• Feminist literary history, criticism, and Okafor’s published plays and essays dealing with the female subject
• African ‘old’ and contemporary women writers and the relationship of their works to Okafor’s body of works
• Intersections of African Anthropology and cultural studies with ‘modern’ conception and practice of culture in light of Western influences
• Mask(ing) Tradition and the challenges of modernity
• Literature, drama, poetry and socio-political engagement
• The art of poetry and drama

Please submit for consideration essays between 5000—7000 words to: Lekan Balogun, PhD, University of Lagos, Akoka (alaafinatiba@ymail.com; olabalogun@unilag.edu.ng) on/before 31^st October 2018.

Contributors should follow the Chicago Manual of Style in preparing their essays.

Categories: Calls for & opportunities, Research, Studies, Teaching

Tags: Africa, African theatre, art, Call for papers, contemporary African literature, Culture, drama, feminism, gender, history, humanities and social sciences, Literary criticism, literature, Poetry, Research, Studies, Teaching, Teaching Africa, women