On interregna: Tejumola Olaniyan and the radical normality of theory

Abstract

In this brief meditation on Tejumola Olaniyan’s theoretical writing, I explore the entanglements between Olaniyan’s widely-cited concept of the “postcolonial incredible” and the notion of an “interregnum,” drawn from Antonio Gramsci. By reconsidering Olaniyan’s use of terms like “overthrow,” “presupposed,” and “normality,” I argue that Olaniyan theorizes the crisis of African postcolonial politics as a crisis of modernity itself. Given that Gramsci used the concept of interregnum to describe a transitional context in which some old order was already dying, while a new one could not yet be born, I ask what it might mean for Olaniyan and the subjects he has researched, such as Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Femi Osofisan—or indeed any radical activist, rebel, or theorist—to overthrow the transition.