RESEARCH IN POSTPROVERBIAL STUDIES: AN UPDATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The earliest formal reference to “postproverbial” as a categorical term for exacting and defining the transformative turns that happen to traditional or conventional proverbs in usage was in the year 1995. I had had the benefit of presenting an initial part of what would later become a sustained scholastic activity at a seminar series in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. That presentation was actually an inauguration of my membership of the Department under the mentorship of an array of senior and established scholars including Professors Dan Izevbaye, Isidore Okpewho, Sam Omo Asein, and Niyi Osundare, with Drs. Harry Garuba and Emevwo Biakolo as guides and advisors. A follow-up presentation of the nascent concept in the Faculty of Arts was met with constructive criticisms that inspired more interest and attention, with contributions by other scholars including Prof. Ayo Bamgbose, Prof. Femi Osofisan, Prof. Niyi Osundare, Dr. Ademola Dasylva, Dr. Femi Fatoba, Dr. Francis Egbokhare, Dr. Solomon Oyetade, and Dr. Duro Adeleke among others.
The first major essay on the concept appeared in Research in African Literatures in 1999, after four years of critical engagement and further explication of the value of the research. The challenges that attended the process of publication were telling. First, the original article was lost in transit but it would find its way eventually to the Ohio office of RAL, through the kindness of Kamari Clarke, then a researcher on fieldwork to Africa during that uncertain decade of military rule in Nigeria. Second, the skeptical reception of the article, which led to a shuttle of critical points and counterpoints, aided the maturity of the final product in publication.
Three decades since the very first effort to introduce the term as a major trope in African transgressive paremiology, there has been a considerable number of publications which have been engaging enough to extend on the radical theory of verbal performance of the proverb text and medium, as well as the proverbial imagination on the African continent.
Here then is a list of essays and books which have drawn influence from and have advanced upon the essence of postproverbial discourse from 1995 to 2025. It is hoped that this bibliography will inspire even more robust and more engaging critical essays thereafter.
Aderemi Raji-Oyelade
Department of English
University of Ibadan
Ibadan, Nigeria
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Abana, Ifeoma and Obiora Eke. “Postproverbials in Igbo Language: A Pragmatic Perspective.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 393-405.
Adamu, Abdalla Uba. “Komai Nisan Dare, Akwai Wani Online”: Social Media and the Emergence of Hausa Neoproverbs.” Humanities 12.44 (2023): https://doi.org/10.3390/h12030044
Ademowo, Adeyemi Johnson and Noah Opeyemi Balogun. “Postproverbial Constructions and Selected Sex-Related Yoruba Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions.” Antropologija 15. 2 (2015): 9-22.
Adeniyi, Kikelomo Olusola and Olatunde Adeyemi Ojerinde. “Nigerian Pidgin Postproverbials: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Social Realities in Selected NP Postproverbials.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 263-288. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Adeyefa, Damola. “Towards A Methodology for Translating African Postproverbials.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 119-151. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Adigbli, Eyivi Seli. “Les Proverbes d’insultes ou Dzu Lododowo en milieu Eʋe: Une
Transformation de la Parole en Armes de Combats Sous Un Regard Postproverbial.” Particip’Action 15. 2 (Juillet 2023): 91-112.
Afolayan, Adeshina. “Proverbs, Postproverbials and the African Mythological Imaginary.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 41-61. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Aguoru, Adedoyin and June Gbadamosi. “The Defiance of Postproverbials in 9ice and Asa’s Pètèpétè.” Journal of the English Language Teachers Association of Nigeria 12. 1 (March, 2022): 43-52.
Ajadi, Michael Olaniyi. “Proverbial Expressions in Contextual Definition of Káà and Its Postproverbial Imagination.” Yoruba Studies Review 7.2 (2022): 1-24.
Ajadi Rasaq Atanda and Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju. “Corpora Issues in Protoproverbials and Postproverbials of Yoruba Culture.” Proverbium 40 (2023): 1-24. https://naklada.ffos.hr/casopisi/index.php/proverbium/article/view/49/323
Akewula, Adams Olufemi. “Al-Ghuluwu fi al-amsal al-arabiy: Of Postproverbials in Modern Arabic Literature and Perceptive Transformations in Afro-Arab Culture.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 299-310.
Akinsete, Charles Tolulope. “The Postmodern Pulse of Postproverbials in African Cultural Space.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 241-253.
Akinsete, Charles Tolulope. “Postproverbial Irony In Contemporary African Cultural Expressions.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 319-339. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Aleksa Varga, Melita and Aderemi Raji-Oyelade. “Proverbs Across Cultures: Engaging with Anti-Proverbs and Postproverbials.” Movements European Realities New Developing Trends, edited by Martina Đukić, Osijek: Academy of Arts and Culture, Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2021, pp. 268-282.
Aragbuwa, Adetutu. “A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Selected Sex-related Yoruba Proverbs and their Post-proverbials.” Nordic Journal of African Studies 29.1 (2020): 1-17.
Aragbuwa, Adetutu and Samuel A. Omotunde. “Metaphorisation of Women in Yoruba Proverbs: A Feminist Critical Analysis.” European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics Studies 5.4 (2022): 1-19. https://oapub.org/lit/index.php/EJLLL/article/view/315/345
Asiyanbi, Adeniyi. Exploring Yoruba Fire Cultures Through Proverbs. Proverbium 40 (2023): 25-46. https://doi.org/10.29162/pv.40.1.358
Ayinuola, Ojo Akinleye. “Linguistic Representations of Postproverbial Expressions among Selected Yoruba Speakers: A Socio-Cultural Interpretation.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 311–326.
Ayodele, Taiwo Adesoji. “Determining the Domain of Postproverbials in Human Language Development Theories and Stages.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019: 448–461.
Ayoh’Omidire, Felix. “Aderemi Raji-Oyelade. Playful Blasphemies: Postproverbials as Archetypes of Modernity in Yorùbá Culture (Studien zu Literaturen und Kunst Afrikas 3; Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012). 168 pp.” Matatu 47.1 (2016): 338-346. https://doi.org/10.1163/18757421-90000411
Balogun, Oladele Abiodun. “Proverbial Oppression of Women in Yoruba African Culture: A Philosophical Overview.” Thought and Practice: Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) 2.1 (2010): 21-36.
Chiangong, Pepetual Mforbe. “Playful Blasphemies: Postproverbials as Archetypes of Modernity in Yorùbá Culture by Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2012). 168pp.” Nordic Journal of African Studies 24.1 (2015): 90–93.
Daniel, Iyabode Omolara Akewo. “Proverbs and Modernity: Taking the Proverbs Out of the Mouth of the Elders.” Proverbium 33 (2016): 67-84. https://naklada.ffos.hr/casopisi/index.php/proverbium/article/view/747/537
’Dunmade, ‘Femi. “A Phenomenology of Selected Postproverbial Poetry of Jack Mapanje.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019: 417-431.
Egbara, Chukwudi Christian. “Of Proverbs and Postproverbial (Re)Constructions: An Evaluation of ‘Altering Alternatives’ in Selected Igbo Proverbs.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019: 346–359.
Ezenwamadu, Judith and Chinyere Theodora Ojiakor. “Proverbs and Postproverbial Stance in Selected Plays of Emeka Nwabueze and Zulu Sofola.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019: 432-447.
Fadare, Nureni O. “Postproverbial and Postmodern Aesthetics in Ify Asia Chiemeziem’s New Media Proverbs.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019: 254-271.
Falola, Toyin. Òwe Ìgbàlódé: “Interrogation of Post-Proverbial Interpretations in Contemporary Scholarship.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 11-40. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Hrisztova-Gotthardt, Hrisztalina. “Aderemi Raji-Oyelade. Playful Blasphemies: Postproverbials as Archetypes of Modernity in Yorùbá Culture. (Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012). 168pp. Proverbium 30 (2013): 451-458. https://naklada.ffos.hr/casopisi/index.php/proverbium/article/view/672/461
Ipadeola, Abosede Priscilla. Feminist African Philosophy: Women and the Politics of Difference. Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2023.
Jegede, Olutoyin Bimpe. “Proverbial Space and the Dialectics of Place and Displacement in Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This.” African Research Review 6. 1 (2012): 275-286.
Jegede, Olutoyin B. “Reconstructing Social and Cultural Reality: Proverbs and Postproverbials in Selected Nigerian Literary Works.” Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 25 (2008): 179-198.
Kipacha, Ahmad. “Not So Well Campaign Speech in Swahili: Postproverbials as Persuasive Tool.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 272-281.
Lemoha, Ositadinma Nkeiruka, Felicia Ohwovoriole and Augustine Okechukwu Agugua. “Postproverbials: The Changing Phases of Igbo Proverbs.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 327-345.
Longdet, Peace Sorochi. “Representation of Gender in Mwaghavul Postproverbials.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 301-317. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Mamvura, Zvinashe and Shumirai Nyota. “The Form and Communicative Impact of Shona Postproverbials.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 282-298.
Mieder, Wolfgang. “International Proverb Scholarship: An Updated Bibliography. (For Aderemi Raji-Oyelade).” Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 38 (2021): 491-532.
Muo, Adaobi. “Recasting Traditional Adages in the Light of Christianity: An Examination of Selected Igbo Postproverbial Expression.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 63-88. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Oboko, Uche and Jennifer Umezinwa. “A Pragmemic Analysis of Igbo Postproverbials: Identity Creation, Negotiation and Signification.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 360-378.
Oboko, Uche and Timothy Ekeledirichukwu Onyejelem. “Identity Constructions, Social Correction and Representational Dynamics of Reconstructing Igbo Proverbs among Digital Natives: A Socio-Pragmemic Analysis.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 229-261. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Ojiakor, Chinyere T. “Igbo Postproverbials: The Dynamic Act of the Cultural Deviant.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 153-175. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Okhuosi, Ronke Eunice. “A Pragmatic Act Analysis of English Postproverbials on Twitter.” Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 379-392.
Olali, Tom and Ahmad Kipacha. “Nihilism and Postproverbials in Euphrase Kezilahabi’s Poetry Anthology Dhifa (Feast).” Mwanga wa Lugha 6.2 (2021): 27-38.
Olaniyan, Adeola Seleem and Adeola Mercy Ajayi. “A Comic Wisdom: Taking a Philosophical Interrogation of Baba Suwe’s Postproverbials.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 177-202.
Owomoyela, Oyekan. Yoruba Proverbs. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Oyeleye, Olayinka. “The Language Game and the Inequality of Gender: Interrogating Feminist Postproverbials.” In Identities, Histories and Values in Postcolonial Nigeria. Ed. A. Afolayan. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. pp. 47-67.
Oyeleye, Olayinka Adebimpe. “Feminist Postproverbial as a Panacea for Decolonising African Feminist Scholarship.” Journal of Higher Education in Africa/Revue de l'enseignement supérieur en Afrique 20.1 (2022): 85-106. https://doi.org/10.57054/jhea.v20i1.2163
Oyeleye, Olayinka. An African Feminist Philosophy of Language. London & New York: Routledge, 2025.
Oyeka, Chiamaka Ngozi and Chigozie Bright Nnabuihe. “Postproverbials in Igbo: An Anthropo-Linguistic Overview.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 89-117. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Raji-Oyelade, A. “Postproverbials in Yoruba Culture: A Playful Blasphemy.” Research in African Literatures 30.1 (1999): 74-82.
Raji-Oyelade, A. “Posting the African Proverb: A Grammar of Yoruba Postproverbials, or Logophagia, Logorrhea and the Grammar of Yoruba Postproverbials.” Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 21 (2004): 299-314.
https://naklada.ffos.hr/casopisi/index.php/proverbium/article/view/620/409
Raji-Oyelade, A. “Classifying the Unclassified: The Challenge of Postproverbiality in International Proverb Scholarship.” In Actas ICP 2007 Proceedings. Eds. Rui JB Soares and Outi Lauhakangas. Tavira: Tipografia Tavirense, 2008. pp. 146-155.
Raji-Oyelade, A. Postproverbials as Archetypes of Modernity in Yoruba Culture. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2012.
Raji-Oyelade, Aderemi and Olayinka Oyeleye. “Introduction - The Postproverbial Agency: Texts, Media and Mediation in African Cultures.” Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society 51. 2 (2019): 229-240.
Raji-Oyelade, Aderemi and Zaynab Ango. “Five and five does not make ten…: Perspectives on Fulbe Postproverbials.” Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society 51.2 (2019): 406-416.
Raji-Oyelade, A. “COVID-19 (Post)proverbials: Twisting the word against the virus.” Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 39 (2022): 224-244. https://doi.org/10.29162/pv.39.1.55
Raji-Oyelade, A. Postproverbials as Archetypes of Modernity in Yoruba Culture. 2nd Edition. Ibadan: Kraftbooks, 2022.
Raji-Oyelade, A. "To Each Proverb Its Prosthesis: The (De)composition of a Traditional African Verbal Art at the Present Times.” Africa at Noon Series. University of Wisconsin-Madison, February 02, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxTNr_HAA9o
Raji-Oyelade, Aderemi. “Of anti-proverbs and postproverbials: Reflections on terms in transgressive paremiology.” Diligence brings delight: A Festschrift in honour of Anna T. Litovkina on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Proverbium Online Supplement 2. Eds. Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt, Melita Aleksa Varga & Wolfgang Mieder. Osijek: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2023. pp. 197-205. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/14/17/37
Raji-Oyelade, Aderemi. Ed. Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. 348pp. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Raji-Oyelade, A. (PI). PACE Electronic Database on Postproverbials (panels on the cultural and linguistic phenomenon of modernist proverbs in a list of African languages). URL: https://postproverbial.com
Raji-Oyelade, Olayombo. “Textile is the Horse of Beauty and Identity: Reading Yoruba Fashion Proverbs and Postproverbials.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 289-299. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Sani, Hauwa Mohammed. “Stylo-Semantic Analyses of Humorous Political Postproverbials in Hausa Speech Communities in Northern Nigeria.” In Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Proverbium Online Supplement 4: 2024. Ed. A. Raji-Oyelade. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, 2024. pp. 203-227. https://naklada.ffos.hr/knjige/index.php/ff/catalog/view/26/32/60
Unseth, Peter. “Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (ed.). Postproverbials at Work: The Context of Radical Proverb-Making in Nigerian Languages. Osijek: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Osijek, 2024, 347 pp. ISBN 978-953-314-217-3, (eBook).” Proverbium 42 (2025): 302-313.
Veit-Wild, Flora. 'Zimbolicious' - The Creative Potential of Linguistic Innovation: The Case of Shona English in Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies 35. 3 (2009): 683-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070903101896
Yitah, Helen. “‘Fighting with Proverbs’: Kasena Women’s (Re)Definition of Female Personhood through Proverbial Jesting.” Research in African Literatures 40. 3 (2009): 74-95.
Yitah, Helen. “Throwing Stones in Jest: Kasena Women’s “Proverbial” Revolt.” Oral Tradition 21. 2 (2006): 233-249.
Yusuff, A. A. “Linguistic strategies that imply gender inequality in Yoruba proverbs and postproverbials.” ASRIC Journal on Social Sciences and Humanities 4.2 (2023): 32-41. https://asric.africa/social-sciences/asric-journal-social-sciences-2023-v4-i1/linguistic-strategies-imply-gender
Yusuff, Abduganiyu Aderemi and Obododimma Oha. “Process types in postproverbials.” Jos Journal of the English Language 5.1 (2023): 459-468.
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