Taiwo Olaniyi

1.0 Introduction   This talk is a sequel to the abiding attempts by literary scholars to explain the ways in which Literature as a discipline empirically facilitates the creation of a better world where everyone is concerned about the pains and pleasures of one and other. This concern is what I have termed empathy which in all indications is what we all need to cultivate in order to ensure a more harmonious world for ourselves. Therefore, the core of this talk is to explore ways in which being literary can make us more empathetic to one another, particularly in this perilous time of pandemic and prevalent personal tragedies.  1.1 What is Literature? Literature simply means a body of creative or imaginative works. Writings such as drama text, poem and novels are in the domain of Literature. A notable characteristics of Literature is that it uses language in a peculiar way (organized violence committed on ordinary speech – Roman Jakobson) to address the human conditi...

Perhaps you've heard this cliché - it's not what you say but how you say it that counts  - a number of times but its reality has not dawned on you, learn from how I experienced it today. It was our occasional academic staff meeting today and I was assigned an additional role to the ones I have been doing with unbridled enthusiasm. I happily accepted it but forcefully rejected its schedule. That was my mistake!  The director strongly berated the reasons I provided for rejecting the role and assigned it to another capable person in my department.  To me, the reasons were right; to him I was wrong. They were right because they were about my expertise. I was wrong because I expressed them in the wrong way. It became obvious that it was in the wrong way when he sarcastically referred to me as the ' most intelligent person in the room.'  As a pragmatician, I knew the implications of that remark. So I went to a superior colleague to help me tender my sincerest apology. The ...

Click here to view the  Time's100-best-fantasy-books . 

Click here to view the  Time's100-best-fantasy-books . 

I read Harry Henderson's Privacy in the Information Age between August 29th and August 30th, 2020. Privacy is a desirable fortune for every human. We all always crave some sense of autonomy - the desire to be spared from unwarranted intrusions either from individuals or corporations. Unfortunately, this desire is becoming a pipe dream as our control of our own privacy is increasingly spiralling out of our control in the current age of internet. In other words, our privacy is not fully guaranteed in this current information age. This is because there has been an explosive growth in our appetite for information and dependence on the internet for it. However, the more we depend on it to fulfil our needs for information, the more we reveal our innermost self which was fondly kept private before the current infiltration of internet into our lives. The phenomenon of privacy, particularly information privacy is the core preoccupation of Henderson's book which considers the...

I read Chinweizu Ibekwe's Anatomy of Female Power between August 25th and August 26th, 2020. Matriarch exists. Does matriarchy exist powerfully as patriarchy does? This is the question which this book proffers answers to. It is a brief essay which, with persuasive series of evidence, challenges the catholicity of the impression that matriarchy is a mirage. It evidently submits that female power exits and "the power they wield is neither illusory nor a joke." Theirs is an amorphous mass of power which calls the shots for men all through their lives.  To contest the men's supremacist attitude towards women, it handily details how women's influence cut through men's existence like a thread. The three phases of men's life are ruled by women's power: motherpower, bridepower and wifepower.  The motherpower manifest in the cradle and espouses the universal truth that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." The...