2022
Postdoctoral Research Fellow (funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation)
August 2022 – July 2024
Dr. Rowland Chukwuemeka Amaefula
Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike
Rowland Chukwuemeka Amaefula is a Lecturer I at the Department of Theatre Arts, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. He received his Ph.D. in Dramatic Criticism from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, re-examining purposively selected Nigerian plays, hitherto considered as feminist, as laden with characters performing gender non-conformance as protest. He is a recipient of the African Humanities Program (AHP) research fellowship award of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) fellowship. Amaefula is also a Georg Forster Postdoctoral Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation from 1st August 2022 through 31st July 2024 at the Institut fur Ethnologie und Afrikanstudien and is hosted by Prof. Dr. Matthias Krings. His research project is titled, “Laughter is Big Business: The Transcendence of Young Entrepreneurial Nigerian Women in Social Media Comedy”. The study focuses on a growing trend in Nigeria in which young women leverage the pervasiveness of social media to circulate their skits. He contends that, whilst mainstream stand-up forms in Nigeria have been largely male-dominated, these female comedians have become equally successful in characterizing different aspects of contemporary living through comedy skits circulated through various social media platforms. The study seeks to investigate how purposively selected comediennes with little production capital and technical expertise have opted for social media as a domain for expressing their talents. Employing the ethnographic approach as well as close reading and critical analyses, he examines ways the selected comics utilize social media to assert artistic agency and center their performances.
Publications and Talks 2021-2022
Book Chapters
Amaefula, R. C. (2022). Africa on the British Stage: Laughter-making Mechanics of Andi Osho and Daliso Chaponda. Izuu Nwankwo. Stand-up Comedy in Africa: Humour in Popular Languages and Media, 229-248.
Journal Articles
Amefula R. C. (2022). No Longer a Laughing Matter: Women Comics and the Social Media Space in Nigeria. Accepted for Publication in TDR: The Drama Review.
Amaefula, R. C. (2022). Performing Nigerianness: Equivocal Identities and Digital Legibility of Women Comics. Accepted for Publication in Journal of African Cultural Studies.
Amaefula, R. C. (2022). Eco-drama, Multinational Corporations and Climate Change in Nigeria. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 10(1): 183-198.
Ayodabo S., Amaefula, R.C.* (2021): Continuity and Discontinuity: Masculinity and Power Blocs in African Cinema. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 38, 1-23.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021): African Feminisms: Paradigms, Problems and Prospects. Feminismo/s, 37, 289- 305.
Talks
Amaefula, R. C. (2022). Overszabi: Equivocal Identities and Digital Legibility of Women Comics. Albert Ludwig University Freiburg im Breisgau. 7-10 June 2022.
Amaefula, R.C. (2022). Passing and Protest in Bobrisky’s Transgender Acts on Social Media. University of Liège, Belgium, and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. 12-13 May 2022.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021). Performing Covid-19 Impact: Social Media and the Mainstreaming of Female Humorists in Nigeria. African Studies Association Conference. 16-20 June 2021.
Amefula, R. C. (2021). No Longer a Laughing Matter: Women Comics and the Social Media Space in Nigeria. The MIASA Publishing Workshop for African Scholars hosted by Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) and African Studies Association of Africa. 21-22 June 2021.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021). Violence and Belongingness in Nigerian Drama: A Reading of Osita Ezenwanebe’s The Giddy Festival. Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Conference/Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. 1-4 July 2021.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021). Femininities in Nigerian Hip-hop Music. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) Triennial Conference. 16-20 June 2021.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021). Eco-Drama, Multinational Corporations and Climate Change in Nigeria. University of Augsburg, Germany. 3-6 June 2021.
Amaefula, R. C. (2021). Transgressing the Binary Culture: Transgender Expressions, Cross-dressing, Identity Construction and Protest Plays in Nigeria. Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka. 8-12 March 2021.