14:00 - 15:30
Room: Poynting – Lecture Theatre S02
Stream: Africa 90 years on
Chair/s:
Wale Adebanwi
On the Theologico-Theatrical: Spiritual Entrepreneurship and Popular Culture in Nigeria
Ebenezer Obadare
Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence

An emergent trend in Nigerian Pentecostalism sees the incorporation of standup comics into the structure of worship. What accounts for this curious convergence between churches and comedians, the spiritual and the profane, the theological and the theatrical? What light does it throw on academic understanding of the dynamic interaction of the domains of spirituality and popular culture in contemporary Nigeria? Triggered primarily by these questions, and with a nod to the postcolony's "taste for theatre" as flagged in Achille Mbembe’s “Provisional Notes on the Postcolony,” this paper analyzes the strategies of evangelization in a context of religious saturation. It is argued that, given the strictures of a changing religious marketplace, the unique convergence of spirituality and entertainment encapsulated by this trend is a function of the need by spiritual entrepreneurs not only to capture, but also to retain the patronage of religious consumers.


Reference:
Tu-A02 Africa 3-P-001
Presenter/s:
Ebenezer Obadare
Presentation type:
Panel
Room:
Poynting – Lecture Theatre S02
Chair/s:
Wale Adebanwi
Date:
Tuesday, 11 September
Time:
14:00 - 14:15
Session times:
14:00 - 15:30