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Call for Papers: Campus Forms, Lagos Studies Association (Deadline: 30 November)

By Africa in Words on 17 November , 2018 • ( 0 )

We are delighted to share this call for abstracts, Campus Forms, for the 4^th Annual Lagos Studies Association Conference, June 27-29, 2019

This is a call for abstract submissions on Nigerian campus forms. The panel wishes to bring together an interdisciplinary team of scholars working on various aspects of university campus life, approached as a particular scene of experience. Papers can range from contributions on historical and contemporary confraternities and “cults” on campus; analyses of accounts of campus life in autobiographical and private papers; campus architecture; public statues on campuses; the politics of food on campus; campus fashions (including perhaps a photograph project); religious practices on campus; the role of university campuses on film, as analysed in Jonathan Haynes’s chapter on the campus film in his book Nollywood which provides a useful point of departure for our analyses of campus films and campus novels. Campus novels have generally been read (in the literature not about African campuses) as satirical and often comical works. This panel proposes instead that we think of campus forms as uprising and transformation genres. A very common thread in campus novels, for example, is debates about the nature of the English department curriculum. A useful contribution would be an overview of novels set on Nigerian campuses. Through the panel, there is the hope to compile an overview of the range of approaches we can take for understanding Nigerian campus forms, and to sketch out the parameters for this study project.