Expanding the Geographical and Cultural Sources of Literary Theory : Engaging The Toyin Falola Reader 3

One of my favourite sources of inspiration, an opon ifa, a cosmological symbol and functional form of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge and divination, the intersecting vertical and horizontal lines suggesting, for me, the intersection of being and becoming, of each circumstance and its larger, enveloping framework, of the everyday self and the larger self beyond the confines of time and space, of earth and cosmos, of conventional forms of perception and their unconventional expansions to include larger universes of knowing, while the nuts at the point of intersection of the lines evokes the seeds of possibility latent in all situations, structures, dynamisms and potentialities which Ifa divination explores as an expression of the perennial human quest to maximize the capacity for interpreting possibilities in decision making, the pattern assumed by the casting of the nuts constituting the symbolic message from the Ifa oracle, an idea one may adapt without recourse to a belief in the validity of the oracular enterprise, approaching the image and the practice it represents simply as a dramatization of possibilities that may be adapted to other contexts.   

Why is literary theory originating in the West the dominant or often the only kind studied in universities in the non-Western English speaking and perhaps French speaking countries and what can be done about that?

This question began to perplex me during my MA in English and Literature at the University of Benin.

Are Europeans and US scholars and thinkers the only one people who know how to propound ideas on the nature of literature and how it should be studied?

Are there no bodies of knowledge in Igbo, Yoruba, Kalabari or Fulani or Zulu philosophy that could contribute to further enlightening humanity on the nature of this common heritage shared by all races?

May ideas on the nature of literature and how it may be studied not be developed or are they not already developed by people working in non-Western literary contexts?

Its inspiring learning about the various literary theories developed by Western writers, from Romanticism to Realism and beyond, by Western philosophers and other theorists, from Plato to Derrida and beyond, often profound ideas about the nature and potential of verbal art and its relationship to the human mind and the cosmos, but what about conceptions on the nature of literature from Japanese and Indian thought, from Yoruba thought, from Owan and Edo philosophies?

Must students spend all their time learning what Plato, Kant, and their modern descendants in the same intellectual tradition had to say?

The discourse is changing, propelled by such movements as 'Decolonizing the Curriculum', evident at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and at the University of Cambridge , as well as such initiatives as the Jan 29-31 Toyin Falola@65 conference at the University of Ibadan, which examined the question of creating ways of interpreting the world that are not limited to the intellectual legacy of the West.

The existence of African oral and written literatures and of African philosophy has been established through serious scholarly effort in the face of those who claimed it did not or could not exist.

For such initiatives to move further, however, people need to develop explanatory paradigms that are not limited to what is offered by Western thought or any existing intellectual tradition.

Just like African writers and artists have established a distinctive global presence, African philosophers and theorists need to establish an original and globally resonant presence.

Anybody can theorize. Its a skill that improves the more it is worked at. Theorizing involves trying to make a general statement in relation to a group of phenomena. This statement may be applicable in all circumstances where these phenomena are present, perhaps with relevant qualifications.

Using this style of thinking, Western scholars and thinkers develop ideas understood to have universal significance, ideas imported into non-Western contexts to explain phenomena in those other frameworks while little of corresponding insights meant to propound universally valid understanding, particularly in philosophy and theory generally penetrates Western scholarship.

That has to change.

This post is inspired by the provocative declarations along similar lines by Toyin Falola in The Toyin Falola Reader, an initiative that resonates with a similar goal I have been pursuing for some time.