Nigerian Women’s Rhetoric of Sexual Pleasure and Power Online

media release: Africa Talks is a new monthly talk series purposefully launched by the African Studies Program at UW-Madison in collaboration with the African Center for Community Development, Inc to coincide with the 50^th Anniversary of Africa at Noon. This year, we want to celebrate 50 years of sharing scholarships on campus by reminding our community that the work we do must extend beyond the walls of the university. Every last Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., advanced graduate student affiliates of the African Studies Program will present a one-hour talk to community members at the Community Relations office in UW South Madison Partnership (UWSMP). Read more about this partnership at Capital City Hues.

April 24:

How do Nigerian women make sense of sex when silence is a cultural and discursive norm? How is the digital media both an alternative and ambivalent space for these women to disrupt silence and critically engage dominant sexual discourses? This talk addresses these salient questions through examining Nigerian women’s sexual discourses online and how their rhetorical practice of dialoguing not only enables knowledge and meaning making, but also articulates the possibilities and experiences of sexual pleasure and power for Nigerian women even in restrictive contexts.

Speaker’s Bio

Oluwayinka Arawomo is currently a 6th year PhD candidate in the Department of English (Composition and Rhetoric program) at UW-Madison. She is the Vice President of the Oline Writing Centers Association (OWCA). She is the past TA Assistant Director of UW-Madison’s Writing Center. Her research interests include digital writing and rhetoric, Nigerian women’s discourses in digital spaces, and African feminism. Her current research project investigates digital media as alternative and ambivalent spaces for Nigerian women’s rhetoric of sexual pleasure and power. She has taught first year composition for four years and supported her students in the writing classroom and one-to-one tutoring in the Writing Center.