Unsupervised Pedagogy and Electronic Literature under Infrastructural Constraint: Experiences from Calabar
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Narratives & Worlds
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
This talk draws from my teaching and creative practice in Calabar, Nigeria, where I use Zoom, multimedia slides, live text, and interactive storytelling to support learning and produce electronic literature under infrastructural constraint. Working within unstable electricity, weak internet, and irregular attendance, I treat interruption and delay as core conditions of digital creativity rather than obstacles to overcome. In my practice, Zoom functions as a flexible literary space in which recordings, replays, chat exchanges, and shared files allow participants to enter, exit, and re-enter the work at different moments, enabling learning and storytelling to continue beyond live sessions and producing a form of distributed supervision that unfolds over time rather than through constant presence. These conditions shape how electronic literature is made and experienced, as students contribute fragments of text, responses, or narrative choices asynchronously while others build on them later. This layered process reflects Indigenous storytelling practices that emphasize repetition, collective listening, improvisation, and shared responsibility for meaning. From this experience, I introduce unsupervised pedagogy as a practical model for understanding how creative learning and electronic literature can emerge productively under partial supervision, delayed access, and infrastructural instability, showing how Zoom-mediated multimedia storytelling can sustain participation, authorship, and community within constrained digital environments.
Unsupervised Pedagogy and Electronic Literature under Infrastructural Constraint: Experiences from Calabar
Narratives & Worlds
This talk draws from my teaching and creative practice in Calabar, Nigeria, where I use Zoom, multimedia slides, live text, and interactive storytelling to support learning and produce electronic literature under infrastructural constraint. Working within unstable electricity, weak internet, and irregular attendance, I treat interruption and delay as core conditions of digital creativity rather than obstacles to overcome. In my practice, Zoom functions as a flexible literary space in which recordings, replays, chat exchanges, and shared files allow participants to enter, exit, and re-enter the work at different moments, enabling learning and storytelling to continue beyond live sessions and producing a form of distributed supervision that unfolds over time rather than through constant presence. These conditions shape how electronic literature is made and experienced, as students contribute fragments of text, responses, or narrative choices asynchronously while others build on them later. This layered process reflects Indigenous storytelling practices that emphasize repetition, collective listening, improvisation, and shared responsibility for meaning. From this experience, I introduce unsupervised pedagogy as a practical model for understanding how creative learning and electronic literature can emerge productively under partial supervision, delayed access, and infrastructural instability, showing how Zoom-mediated multimedia storytelling can sustain participation, authorship, and community within constrained digital environments.
Bio
Dr Lilian Okoro is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, whose work examines electronic literature, digital storytelling, and pedagogical practice related to applied theatre and Media studies.