Africa at Noon on October 14, 2015

Conversations: Is it a Laughing Matter? Boko Haram in Nigerian Cartoons

Jimga Jimoh Ganiyu
Visiting Scholar, Michigan State University
University of Lagos, Nigeria

Teju Olaniyan
Professor, African Languages & Literature and English
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Time and Location

12:00pm, 206 Ingra­ham Hall, 1155 Obser­va­tory Drive, Madi­son, WI

Description

This presentation explores how Nigerian cartoonists represent the Boko Haram terrorist group. It examines the possibilities and difficulties of intersecting humor–the cartoonist’s favorite tool—with subjects of violence and terrorism.

Bios

Ganiyu A. Jimoh (JIMGA), is a visiting scholar at the African Studies Center, Michigan State Univeristy, U.S.A. He lectures full time at the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Nigeria. A cartoonist and scholar of cartoons, he is currently on a Ph.D. programme in the same department focusing on African editorial cartooning and the representation of politics. Jimga has exhibited locally and internationally with exceptional awards.

Tejumjola Olaniyan is the Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His interests include African, African American, and Caribbean literature, postcolonial cultural studies, genre studies—history, theory, and sociology of drama; popular culture studies—art, music, and architecture.