Collector, Curator, Creator: Nigerian folktales and their colonial appropriation, feminist intervention, and contemporary re-appropriation.

本文将从后殖民女性主义视角分析尼日利亚民间故事的收集和传播，并探讨这种民间故事形式是如何在当代非洲英语小说中被重新使用的。我计划从尼日利亚前地区专员埃尔芬斯通·戴雷尔（Elphinstone Dayrell）和安吉拉·卡特（Angela Carter）的档案中，调查殖民时代对尼日利亚民间故事的挪用，这些故事是由妇女讲述的，也是关于妇女的。安吉拉·卡特出版了戴雷尔的一系列故事集，作为她对童话和民间故事的女权主义干预的一部分。重要的是，我的项目还将通过探索Nnedi Okorafor，Irenosen Okojie，Lesley Nneka Arimah和Akwaeke Emezi在他们的小说中融入和创造性地改编民间故事形式和比喻的方式来展示尼日利亚民间故事的当代相关性。随后，从Dayrell的收集民间故事被列入卡特的两个Virago童话书（1990年，1993年）。虽然卡特的作品被广泛研究，但她的民间故事选择方法却被忽视了。我将调查卡特选集的背景意义，并评估其交叉限制。然后，我将探讨民间故事的形式是如何被当代尼日利亚女作家谁创造性地包括在他们的小说民俗形式和主题重新占用。为此，我将研究Nnedi Okorafor的《谁害怕死亡》（2010），Akata Witch（2011）和Binti三部曲（2019），Irenosen Okojie的短篇小说Speak Gigantular（2016）和Lesley Nneka Arimah的短篇小说What it Means When a Man福尔斯Falls from the Sky（2017），以及Akwaeke Emezi的中篇小说Freshwater（2018）。通过强调档案材料可以加深我们对当代文学的理解的方式，该项目将为非洲文学史提供一种创新的批判方法。我提出的论文建立在我的项目的最后一年后殖民文本模块（分级为一等，我收到了希望之路奖）和我的MRes论文（我预测一个区别等级）。基于我的学术本科记录，我赢得了极具竞争力的NTU研究途径奖学金;这个奖学金支持那些表现出未来研究人员的特殊承诺的研究生。在NTU的2018年英语研究博览会上，我是第一个参加后殖民文本项目的学生;这一经历增加了我追求研究生研究的决心。我目前是诺丁汉当代艺术中心一个小组的成员，利用我对后殖民和性别理论的了解，为一系列面向公众的活动提供信息。学术民间故事研究集中在欧洲的品种上，主要是接近"非历史"和"普遍"的叙事（Haase 2010）。然而，欧洲以外的民间故事的收集和翻译过程与殖民文化占有密不可分。从南亚的角度来看，Naithani（1997; 2006; 2010）调查了英国“殖民者民俗学家”如何利用完成大部分收集和翻译工作的未被认可的本地助手。然而，专门针对尼日利亚民间故事的研究很少。这种学术干预的缺乏将通过检查Dayrell的工作作为一个"殖民者民俗学家"（Naithani 1997），包括咨询他出版的民间故事卷（1910年，1913年）和笔记本手稿，在皇家人类学研究所举行的解决。

This thesis will analyse the collection and dissemination of Nigerian folktales from a postcolonial feminist perspective, and explore how the folktale form has been reappropriated in contemporary Anglophone African fiction. I plan to investigate the colonial-era appropriation of Nigerian folktales as told by women - and about women - from the archives of Elphinstone Dayrell, former district commissioner of Nigeria, and Angela Carter, who published a selection of Dayrell's collected narratives as part of her feminist intervention in fairy tales and folktales. Importantly, my project will also demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the Nigerian folktale by exploring the ways in which Nnedi Okorafor, Irenosen Okojie, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Akwaeke Emezi incorporate and creatively adapt folktale forms and tropes in their fiction.In the early 1900s, Dayrell collected and translated Nigerian folktales; subsequently, folktales from Dayrell's collections were included in Carter's two Virago Book[s] of Fairy Tales (1990, 1993). Whilst Carter's work has been extensively researched, her folktale selection methods have been overlooked. I will investigate the contextual significance of Carter's anthologies and assess their intersectional limitations. I will then explore how the folktale form is being reappropriated by contemporary Nigerian women writers who creatively include folkloric forms and themes in their fiction. For this, I will examine Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death (2010), Akata Witch (2011) and the Binti trilogy (2019), short stories from Irenosen Okojie's Speak Gigantular (2016) and Lesley Nneka Arimah's What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky (2017), and Akwaeke Emezi's novella, Freshwater (2018). By emphasising the ways in which archival material can deepen our understanding of contemporary literature, this project will offer an innovative critical methodology for African literary history. My proposed thesis builds on my project for the final-year Postcolonial Texts module (graded as First Class and for which I received the HopeRoad Prize) and on my MRes dissertation (for which I am predicted a Distinction grade). On the basis of my academic undergraduate record, I won a highly competitive NTU Research Pathway Scholarship; this bursary supports postgraduates who show exceptional promise as future researchers. At NTU's 2018 English Research Fair, I was the first student to present on a Postcolonial Texts project; this experience added to my determination to pursue postgraduate research. I am currently part of a group-placement at Nottingham Contemporary, using my knowledge of postcolonial and gender theories to inform a series of public-facing events.Scholarly folktale research focuses on European varieties, largely approaching such narratives as 'ahistorical' and 'universal' (Haase 2010). Yet the collection and translation processes of folktales from outside of Europe is inextricable from colonial cultural appropriation. From a South Asian perspective, Naithani (1997; 2006; 2010) investigates how British 'colonizer-folklorists' exploited uncredited, native assistants who completed most of the collection and translation work. However, research specifically concerning Nigerian folktales is scarce. This lack of scholarly intervention will be addressed through examining Dayrell's work as a 'colonizer-folklorist' (Naithani 1997), involving consulting his published folktale volumes (1910, 1913) and notebook manuscripts, held at the Royal Anthropological Institute.