Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
Accepted Paper:
Of Religion, Criminality, and Paradoxes: LGBTQI and the (Ir)Rationality of Exorcism in Nigeria
Elizabeth Onogwu
(University of Nigeria)
The paper focuses on various “remedying” actions taken by families for their loved ones who have “come out of the closet. Using 3 novels, this work explores paradoxical religious expressions that border on criminality by religious clergies that are tasked with exorcising the spirit of homosexuality
Paper long abstract:
Homosexuality in today’s Nigeria has taken on various deleterious assumptions, it is perceived by many as an oddity and has become synonymous to a western aberration that embodies one of the relics of colonisation. A critical historical study of homosexuality in Nigeria, nay Africa, however, proves quite the contrary. This paper attempts to explore the dilemma faced by homosexuals in Nigeria and to understand the trials they encounter in a society that polices and punishes their sexual orientations. The paper focuses on the various “remedying” actions taken by families for their loved ones who have just “come out of the closet,’ particularly, the use of religious exorcism. Using Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows, Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Tree and Unoma Azuah’s Embracing my Shadow as key texts, this work explores paradoxical religious expressions that border on criminality by revered religious clergies that are tasked with the job of exorcising the spirit of homosexuality from their victims. It organises its fundamental argument around Tony Edwards (1993) concept of the rationality of religious paradoxes while concluding that religion and love should be one and the same irrespective of a person’s sexuality.