The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has dedicated the second ANA/AE-FUNAI conference to the memory of Professor Pius Adesanmi, writer, critic, poet and educator, who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10.
The conference, for which it is also making a call for papers on literary criticism, holds from July 2-3 at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria under the theme: ‘Nigeria’s Literary Criticism in an Expanding Space of Creative Writing and Digital Production in the 21st Century’.
The association says this second edition of the conference is to address the lack of or absence of literary criticism and critics working in tandem with the current and new literary writings and development. It is also to focus on literary criticism that is on and offline and beyond the weekend literary reviews on print, digital media and the secluded academia.
The project, largely to seek the expansion of the frontiers of Nigerian literature, will take the form of an international conference and a workshop.
The papers ANA is calling for are expected to be on Nigerian literary criticism that focus on but is not limited to the following sub themes: Nigerian Literature in its Current Forms, Literary Criticism and the Critics Role in Nigerian Literary Enterprise, The Canons and Theories of Nigerian Literary Criticism, Digital Literature or Literature in Online Platforms; The Role of Digital, or Conventional Media in Literary Criticism, The New Spaces of Publishing, Literary Production and Distribution; The Role of Literary Organisations in Literary Development, Re-contextualising Literary Criticism in Nigeria, among others.
Interested entrants are to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words on or before April 30. Accepted submissions will be notified by first week of May 2019.
Adesanmi has had a long relationship with ANA that began in 2001 when his poetry publication The Wayfarer and Other Poems (2001) won the ANA Poetry Prize that year and had gone on to deliver the keynote address at ANA’s 2012 International Convention in Akwa Ibom State.
His other literary works include such prose non-fiction satiric works as You’re Not A Country Africa (2011) and most recently Naija No Dey Carry Last (2015).
