At the Crossroads of Art and Society:
Niyi Osundare and Poetry in Nigeria

The seventieth birthday of Nigerian poet and professor of comparative literature, Niyi Osundare, invites deeper reflection on the poet-scholar’s life and contributions to literary cultures in Nigeria and the world generally. Although a number of significant studies have emerged in the past few years to study Osundare’s poetry within a range of contextual, thematic and stylistic conventions, particularly focusing on the “accessibility” of his verses and his political commitments as a poet, there still remain significant gaps and scantiness in focused appreciation of Osundare’s poetic oeuvre. His contributions to the “language” of “Nigerian poetry,” to socio-political criticism of the postcolony as well as his consistent agitation for committed ethical disposition towards the environment cannot be overstated. This special issue hopes to address some of these gaps by bringing into discussion intersections of ideas of humanism, community, environment, economics and the cosmopolitan space in the poetry of Osundare.

We therefore invite proposals for papers that will give nuanced and focused discussion of Osundare’s poetry from a range of approaches that will speak to one or more of the following topics:

• Niyi Osundare’s Humanism and Post-Humanism
• Niyi Osundare’s Poetics
• Localities and Cosmopolities in Osundare’s Poetry
• Exile and Diasporic Consciousness in Osundare’s Poetry
• Identity Constructions and Questions in Osundare’s Poetry
• Pan-Africanism in Osundare’s Poetry
• Nation, Non-Nation, and Anti-Nation in Osundare’s Poetry
• Niyi Osundare’s Poetry in the Light of the “Generational” Debates
• Eros and the Erotic in Osundare’s Poetry
• Gender and Sexuality in Osundare’s Poetry
• Intertextuality in Osundare’s Poetry
• Language and the Postcolonial Question in Osundare’s Poetry
• Nature in Osundare’s Poetry

Please send a proposal of not more than 350 words and a short biographical statement of not more than 100 words to: osundarecrossroads@gmail.com on or before Wednesday, August 31, 2016. Selected authors will be contacted by email with instructions and a deadline for submitting full papers. For further details, please contact Tosin Gbogi or Arthur Anyaduba via osundarecrossroads@gmail.com