Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Kayode Ogunfolabi
2023-2024
Home institution
Obafemi Awolowo University
Country of origin (home institution)
Nigeria
Discipline(s)
Cultural studies
Literature
Theme(s)
Contemporary violence & Justice
Cultural Studies
Gender, Family & Youth
Fellowship dates
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Biography
Kayode Ogunfolabi is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, specializing in areas like Anglophone postcolonial fiction, literary theory, and trauma studies. He is also a published author, having written articles and book chapters on Nigerian women's writing, postcolonialism, and film.
Research Project
Trauma, Silences, and the Making of Twenty-first Century Nigerian Women's Fiction
Nigerian literature has traditionally focused on trauma related to wars, ignoring insidious trauma that occurs in non-war contexts. However, at the turn of the century, there was a shift in the literary scene with Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Purple Hibiscus, which focuses on private suffering.
Kayode Ogunfolabi aims to explore the emergence of insidious trauma in Nigerian twenty-first-century fiction as a new literary practice. He seeks to awaken both men and women to the perceptions of women at various levels of society and culture, where subordination and women’s suffering are normalized.
Research Interests:
Nigerian literature; insidious trauma; gender and private suffering; literary representations of women