Common sense, uncommon sense: Tejumola Olaniyan in the theorization of African postcolonial Drama

Abstract

This paper engages Tejumola Olaniyan’s “Femi Osofisan: The Form of Uncommon Sense.” The essay in question undertakes a reading of a representative selection from the corpus of Femi Osofisan’s plays, employing the theory of uncommon sense which Olaniyan himself formulated. Olaniyan projects uncommon sense as a reflection on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of common sense put forward in his Selections from Prison Notes. He presents it as a new dimension of contemplation which explores new possibilities and unsettles old conclusions. To prove his position that Osofisan’s plays represent the form of uncommon sense, Olaniyan rifles through the playwright’s oeuvre and produces detailed readings of some of the works using the theory. I undertake three main tasks in this paper. First, I evaluate the accuracy of the positions taken by Olaniyan on some of the plays of Osofisan that he investigates using the theory of uncommon sense. Second, while affirming that uncommon sense as formulated by Olaniyan is seminal, I try to see whether it is not possible to re-constitute this principle around the notion of cultural hegemony that Gramsci is best known for. Finally, I attempt an application of the reconfigured theory in the analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa

Keywords:

• Common sense
• uncommon sense
• cultural hegemony
• Osofisan
• Anowa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The article was first published in Research in African Literatures, vol. 30, no. 4, Winter, 1999, pp. 74–91, and later included in African Drama and Performance, edited by John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan. Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 109–125.

2 I have written before on Raymond Williams “Hegemony and Tradition.” See Wumi Raji, “Morountodun by Femi Osofisan: Marxism, Feminism, and an African Dramatist’s Engagement with an Indigenous Heroic Narrative.” Africa Writing Europe: Opposition, Juxtaposition, Entanglement, edited by Maria Olaussen and Christina Angelfors. Rodopi, 2009, pp. 95–124.

3 See Wumi Raji, “‘Not a Girl to Meet Every day’: Feminist Identity Transformation in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa.” Spheres Public and Private: Western Genre in African Literatures, edited by Gordon Collier. Rodopi, 2011, pp. 503–529.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wumi Raji

Wumi Raji is a Professor of Postcolonial Drama, Theatre and Literature at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria. He is the author of Long Dreams in Short Chapters: Essays in Postcolonial African, Cultural and Political Criticisms (Berlin: Lit, 2009), and Apalara: Youth Empowerment Scheme in the State of Osun, Nigeria (Berlin: Galda, 2022). He is the editor of Contemporary Literature of Africa: Tijan M. Sallah and Literary Works of The Gambia (Amherst: Cambria, 2014), and co-editor (with Femi Osofisan) of Ogun’s Errant Warrior: Celebrating Biodun Jeyifo at 70 (Ibadan: Kraft Books, 2018); (with Idaevbor Bello) An Idea we must not Forget: A Celebration of Festus Iyayi (Ibadan: Kraft Books, 2016); and (with Sylvester Odion Akhaine and Akin Adesokan) Odia Ofeimun: In Search of a Common Morality: Essays, Tributes and Conversations (Ile Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 2023). Wumi Raji has also published Rolling Dreams (Poetry, 2002) and Another Life (Play, 2013) and has taught at the Universities of Ilorin, Benin, Bayreuth, Frankfurt and The Gambia. His scholarly essays have appeared in Research in African Literatures, African Literature Today and Matatu: Journal of African Culture, among others.