"Do you see me behaving like a homosexual?" Writing is Performance: New Publication alert!

When he became digitally known during the pandemic, I was indifferent about him because I thought he would soon fizzle out like others, but one day I saw a video where he asked a rhetorical question in the title of this post. This made me pay more attention to him to stimulate scholarly interest in other lesser-researched pastors and imams who complicate the performativity of religion as part of their visibility politics.

In a black shirt and medium close-up shot of the camera while engaging his audience as he usually does, he asked in the video in reference, "Do you see me behaving like a homosexual?" Odumeje then went ahead to imitate and ridicule in a feminine theatrical tone, voice, and gesture how some pastors speak, which he assumes are gay. The mannerisms that Odumeje attributes to queerness were not previously so viewed. Phonetics and gesture serve as an index of exposure, sophistication, and refinement. Odumeje turns this established notion of maturity and sophistication into a qualification of difference.

Thus begins my collation of data. This statement should lead me to sexuality, but this publication is the performance of knowledge it leads me to because I learn to treat my data like doctors treat their patients: listen and follow the lead.

The idea of performance is key to how I think of many things, including writing in recent times. It seems that most academic work is practice (rehearsal) and then the performance (recital/publishing). Nobody writes a published paper based solely on intentions. Research/performance is what we do.

Bell hooks argues that "teaching is a performative act" because it creates an environment conducive to change, invention, and spontaneous shifts, which can act as a catalyst for drawing out the unique elements present in each classroom. To be clear, teachers are not performers nor teaching spectacles, although the personalities and temperaments of some teachers lend themselves this way. Rather, teaching as performance is a catalyst for listeners, audiences, and students to become more engaged and active participants in learning.

Admittedly, my analogy oversimplifies what we do. But you don’t know how well you perform under pressure until they need that galley proof in 48 hours.

Here is another performance just published in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 37(1), titled "Disrupting or Dwelling? Chukwuemeka Ohanaemere Odumeje and Pentecostal Performativity in a West African Popular and Digital Culture"

An LSA-sponsored panel at ASA in Philadelphia in 2022 featured a version of this published paper. I thank all the audience who engaged with my work, prodded my ideas, and offered provocative prompts that have shaped the outcome.

In the next few days, I will make three posts about what publishing this article taught me about distraction, fear, and internal dialogue.

Post 1: Attend to your bushfires.

Post 2: Don’t let it drive.

Post 3: ⁠Whose voice is that?

Don’t forget, reader discretion is advised.