Suchergebnisse

In the burgeoning field of queer African studies, theatricality receives short shrift. Instead, anthropological studies of LGBTQ identities and practices in Africa emphasize theoretical frameworks of sexual discretion, elusiveness, and ambiguity. This essay explores the coarticulation of discretion and theatricality in Binyavanga Wainaina's 2011 play Shine Your Eye, which features a queer Ogoni hacker in Lagos. The play borrows from Afrofuturism to articulate a queer African identity that is both enigmatic and spectacular. I then shift focus to Wainaina's viral "coming out" essay "I Am a Homosexual, Mum" (2014), not to construct a progressive narrative from closeted discretion to theatrical outness but to explore the dialectics of theatricality across genre. Although the title enacts a clear declaration of sexual identity, the essay itself shares the play's investment in African technologies of queerness that emphasize interdependency and elusiveness. As queer Kenya becomes increasingly out, loud, and sexy, Wainaina's work serves as a powerful reminder that ambiguity can be theatrical too.

A review essay on books by (1) michael Etherton, African Theatre: Youth (Oxford & Hollywood, CA: James Currey & African Academic Press/Tsehai, 2006); (2) Gichingri Ndigirigi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Drama and the Kamiriithu Popular Theater-Experiment (Trenton, NJ: & Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World, 2007); (3) Susan Arndt & Katrin Berndt, Words and Worlds: African Writing, Theatre and Society (Trenton, NJ & Asmara, Etitrea: Africa World Press, 2007); & (4) David B. Coplan, In Township Township Tonight! South Africa's Black City Musci and Theatre ([2nd edition] Chicago, IL & London: U Chicago Press, 2008).