Nigerian Postcolonial Comedy, Religious Shamanism and Modernity: Soyinka, Osofisan and Kalejaiye
Yemi Atanda
Qeios November 20, 2023 preprint DOI: 10.32388/xfd8oc (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that Nigerian comic drama deploys shamanic and animist practices to interrogate modernity and expose corruption, deceit, and megalomania in postcolonial Nigeria. Contends that comedy, despite receiving less critical attention than tragedy and satire, provokes laughter that unmasks truth, and that people remain gullible and entrenched in an 'animist consciousness' even within modernity's rational teleology. |
Abstract
Shamanism is an animistic religious practice characterized by belief in a metaphysical world of gods, demons, and ancestral spirits that can only be understood by shamans. This work examines religious shamanism in the face of modernity to provoke laughter through comedy. While provoking laughter, it unmasks truth; rot, deceit, corruption, and megalomania in a postcolonial site. There are three genres of drama well-articulated in Nigerian theatre: tragedy, satire, and comedy; but comedy appears to have received less critical attention than the rest, hence this research. This essay undertakes shamanic practices to interrogate modernity in the plays of Soyinka, Osofisan, and Kalejaiye. It also shows how people can be gullible and deeply entrenched in ‘animist consciousness even in the construction of modernity’s sanitized, rational, and linear teleology’ (Okoye, p. 118) without circumspection and turns it into a “battle” of persuasions. Textual and critical analysis of the selected plays demonstrates how characters in dramatic action, language, and characterization display their gullibility; hidden and controlling motives that are domiciled in corrupt, megalomaniac, and deceitful narratives as unpacked in Nigerian postcolonial comedy.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |