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The Dynamics of Literary Response: Students as Readers of African Women's Writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2022
Extract
At the 1998 Book Day Symposium organised by the British Council in Lagos, almost everyone who spoke lamented the near absence of a reading culture in Nigeria. As one of the guest speakers, I tried to highlight and discuss some of the factors that militate against the development of a reading culture in our society. Naturally I also suggested ways by which this anomaly could be remedied. Few or a negligible proportion of people read for pleasure in Nigeria. And among these, students at the various levels of formal education - primary, secondary and tertiary - constitute the greater part of the reading public. But unfortunately, these students read only to write and pass their examinations, which implies a wilful circumscription of books, especially literary texts. Even at the tertiary level, it is usually an uphill task persuading the students, even of literary studies, to go beyond the required or recommended texts in their reading.
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- Reading and Readership in West Africa
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- Copyright © International African Institute 2000
References
References
The excerpts in the paper are taken from students who registered for the course in the 1995/96, 1997/98 and 1998/99 sessions. The number of students each academic year exceeded 100. This is considered large for a final year class and the number attests to the popularity of the course, especially as it is not a required course.Google Scholar
I am aware of the controversy over the concept of feminism in our multicultural world which has made it imperative today that the most acceptable term is ‘feminisms’ (plural) to account for the numerous cultural variants of the ideology or concept. Feminism, as used in this paper, is, therefore, representative of all the feminisms that have been conceived to achieve women's emancipation and empowerment.Google Scholar
Interpretive strategies - those formulated ideas about literary appreciation likely to be shared by a group of readers such as an academic group.Google Scholar
African feminism is a controversial term among scholars and activists. Many prefer the term ‘Womanism’.Google Scholar
The identities of this student and others from whose responses I have taken excerpts have been deliberately withheld.Google Scholar
I felt students would not write their views honestly and freely if they were asked to write their names on the questionnaire.Google Scholar
So Long a Letter (easily the most popular text in feminist studies here) was not on the reading list in the 1998/99 session and was, therefore, not available to students for the exercise.Google Scholar
Works cited
Fish, S. 1980. Is there a Text in this Class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.Google Scholar
Iser, W. 1978. The Act of Reading: a theory of aesthetic reception. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U.P.Google Scholar
Newell, S. 1997. ‘Making up their own Minds: readers, interpretations and the difference of view in Ghanaian popular narratives’, Africa 67 (3), 389–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nnolim, C. 1994. ‘A House Divided: feminism in African literature’, in Chukwuma, H. (ed.), Feminism in African Literature - essays on criticism. Enugu: New Generation Books.Google Scholar
Selden, R. and Widdowson, P. 1993. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar