Ecopoiesis and econoesis of Okam’s Difu

Authors

  • Yohanna Joseph WALIYA University of Calabar

Keywords:

ecopoiesis, econoesis, cultural ecology, drama, literature, Difu, theory of imaginative literature (TIL)

Abstract

Ecocriticism is a reaction to the increase in environmental consciousness. It is a kind of literary criticism that focuses on how literary writings contribute to ecology. Ecological theory is used to examine the interaction between the biological environment and the text. It looks at the aesthetics of literature and the philosophical connections between people, the environment, and texts. This article within the domain of ecocriticism aims at analysing Okam’s writing style as it interplays with the propensity of Ameshi villagers in Difu to confirm the people’s raison d’être. However, Hubert Zapf’s theory of imaginative literature is employed to interpret the nature of cultural interconnectedness and diversity in the masterpiece under the aegis of the hypothetico-deductive method and the literary cultural-ecological approach. These methodologies imply that new hypotheses are derived from spontaneous relational conversations between the characters in the drama and their environment, which serve as reservoirs of cultural-ecological knowledge. This study begins with a discussion of ecocriticism in literature, followed by a description of the theory of creative literature to expand on Hubert Zapf’s ideas and confirm results from evaluating the playwright’s ecopoiesis and characters’ econoesis in certain extracted samples of Difu. Finally, it shows the interconnectedness of nature in the play vis-à-vis Ameshi’s culture.

Author Biography

Yohanna Joseph WALIYA, University of Calabar

Yohanna Joseph Waliya is a Nigerian digital poet, distant writer, ludokinetic writer, novelist, playwright, and Python programmer. He is the winner of the Janusz Korczak Prize for the Global South 2020, Electronic Literature Organization Research Fellow, UNESCO Janusz Korczak Fellow, Creator & Curator of MAELD and ADELD [2022 Emerging Open Scholarship Award: Honorable Mention, C-SKI], Executive Director of AELA& ADELI (https://africanelit.org), Executive Director of AELA and ADELI (https://africanelit.org), International Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference on Web and Social Media [ICWSM ] Scholar 2021-2022, Scrimba Scholar 2022-2023, and Hastac Scholar 2021-2023. He writes in English and French. Among his works are : La récolte de vie (play), Monde 2.0 (play), Hégémonie Disparue (novel), Quand l’Afrique se lèvera (novel), Homosalus (digital poetry), Momenta (digital poetry), @TinyKorczak (Twitterbot-poetry), Climatophosis (digital poetry: The best use of DH for Fun 2020), Inferno 2.0 (ludokinetic poetry), etc. He is also lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages and Translation Studies, University of Calabar as well as a postgraduate student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. His research interests cover distant writing, Distant reading, Digital Poetry, Metaversal literature, Twitterbot-poetry , Twitterature, Digital Humanities and language discourse.

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Published

2022-11-04

How to Cite

WALIYA, Y. J. . (2022). Ecopoiesis and econoesis of Okam’s Difu. GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, 5(2), 136-143. Retrieved from http://gnosijournal.com/index.php/gnosi/article/view/201

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