Reacting to Electronic Literature in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Narratives & Worlds
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
Electronic literature is still quite new in our country, and we do not have enough manpower to drive a literary or scholarly movement. We need to introduce these concepts to many people; however, we do not have the people we need who know the field well enough to pass on their passion and prowess to get others enthused about electronic literature.
In this talk, I will describe the ways that I have presented my work, The Water Seller, Mai Ruwa, with Deena Larsen. In October 2025, I presented this work in an in-person conference in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria on Nigerian and French electronic literature. We only had a projector and not the internet, and the projector did not work. Therefore, I could not share the work with everyone at the conference and do my own reading. We had to google the work and we could not even get the whole work for everyone. The audience was enthusiastic and asked many questions, including how to apply post-colonial theory, semiotic theory and other literary theories to this work. I answered that yes, these theories could apply to the work—and that different story line readings may have different theoretical implications.
We designed this work to work on cell phones as well as computers. My supervisor, Professor Richard Ajah cites the work in his paper and articles. However, as this is published both on Deena Larsen's site and in the New River Journal, we do not have analytics so we don't know how many people have viewed the work. And it is difficult to review the work in Nigerian presses because there is no precedent for reviewing or talking about electronic literature.
My talk will be a call to action for the entire world to create more accessible electronic literature and to find ways to teach and share the wonderful possibilities inherent in the medium--even in conferences without a working projector, let alone the internet! We need more cell phone works, more transversals, more readings, more ways to post works on social media that Nigerians use.
Reacting to Electronic Literature in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria
Narratives & Worlds
Electronic literature is still quite new in our country, and we do not have enough manpower to drive a literary or scholarly movement. We need to introduce these concepts to many people; however, we do not have the people we need who know the field well enough to pass on their passion and prowess to get others enthused about electronic literature.
In this talk, I will describe the ways that I have presented my work, The Water Seller, Mai Ruwa, with Deena Larsen. In October 2025, I presented this work in an in-person conference in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria on Nigerian and French electronic literature. We only had a projector and not the internet, and the projector did not work. Therefore, I could not share the work with everyone at the conference and do my own reading. We had to google the work and we could not even get the whole work for everyone. The audience was enthusiastic and asked many questions, including how to apply post-colonial theory, semiotic theory and other literary theories to this work. I answered that yes, these theories could apply to the work—and that different story line readings may have different theoretical implications.
We designed this work to work on cell phones as well as computers. My supervisor, Professor Richard Ajah cites the work in his paper and articles. However, as this is published both on Deena Larsen's site and in the New River Journal, we do not have analytics so we don't know how many people have viewed the work. And it is difficult to review the work in Nigerian presses because there is no precedent for reviewing or talking about electronic literature.
My talk will be a call to action for the entire world to create more accessible electronic literature and to find ways to teach and share the wonderful possibilities inherent in the medium--even in conferences without a working projector, let alone the internet! We need more cell phone works, more transversals, more readings, more ways to post works on social media that Nigerians use.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2026/narrativesandworlds/schedule/34
