Izuu Nwankwọ

Dr. Izuu Nwankwọ

Dr. Izuu Nwankwọ is with the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. His recent books are Yabbing and Wording: The Artistry of Nigerian Stand-up Comedy (NISC Press, 2021), an edited volume, Stand-up Comedy in Africa: Humour in Popular Languages and Media (ibidem-Verlag, 2022), and a co-authored book [with Daniel Hammett and Laura S. Martin] Humour and Politics in Africa: Beyond Resistance (Bristol University Press, 2022).

My CEDITRAA story

“I have been interested in x-raying cross-cultural joke presentation mechanics, themes, and performer-audience relations; guided by queries about what performance specificities jokesters enact to mitigate offence while dealing with sensitive/volatile subjects and a more diverse, PC-conscious audience. Presently, I interrogate non-African content creators who use Nigerian popular culture on social media, exploring how their bodies construct, produce, and transmit Africanness and how their productions are mediated, viewed, and interpreted by audiences.

CEDITRAA, for me, is an opportunity to delve deeper into the appreciation of emergent popular culture and how digital media is emboldening such occurrences. CEDITRAA provides an interdisciplinary locus for a multilateral appraisal of digital media affordances and the resulting transformations in cultural entrepreneurship within Africa and Asia.”