Arts & Culture
Conference In Honour Of Professor Bolanle Awe At 90
Published
6 months agoon

ORAL TRADITIONS, WRITTEN HISTORIES
Organised by:
The University of Texas at Austin
University of Lagos
University of Ibadan
Conveners:
Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
Professor Olufunke Adeboye, University of Lagos
Professor Rasheed Olaniyi, University of Ibadan
Dr Sharon Omotoso, University of Ibadan
Keynote Address:
Professor Olabisi Aina
Department of Sociology
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Date: February 13-14, 2023 Venue: University of Ibadan
Call for Papers
History is undoubtedly the lifeline of every human society. It is an integral element in the intertwined processes of development and civilisation, which influence cultures, beliefs, and perceptions. Whether oral or written, history promotes data collection that helps put past trends in perspective and predicts future happenings as part of its role in achieving a sense of socio-philosophical coherence in any human context.
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Professor Bolanle Awe has made unrivalled contributions to Nigerian female historiography in particular and African history in general. As a result, the Bolanle Awe at 90 Conference tagged “Oral Traditions, Written Histories” will draw on the scholarship, career, and legacy of Nigeria’s foremost female history professor as she hits the nonagenarian milestone in January 2023.
During her illustrious academic career, Professor Bolanle Awe, a former Professor of Oral History at the University of Ibadan, was Editor of The Journal of the University of Lagos School of African Studies, a visiting scholar to several universities within and outside Nigeria, a consultant to governments and international bodies and agencies, as well as a member of several public and private-sector boards. It is no exaggeration that Professor Awe’s life is the veritable definition of a fulfilling academic career fused with commendable non-academic stints.
At her core, the nonagenarian is a researcher who focuses on solution-driven approaches to national and global problems, as evident in the posts she has held as Director at the Institute of African Studies, with the Women’s Research and Documentation Center (WORDOC), University of Ibadan, and with organisations including MacArthur Foundation, UNESCO, and UNFPA.
Remarkably, oral history is a forte of this amazon around whose works this conference is woven. Oral history has proven valuable in the collection and analysis of ancient, recent, and even contemporary historical data. Given the value it has placed on the spoken word from time immemorial, the African continent continues to rely heavily on oral history. Indeed, pre-colonial Africa was peopled by diverse civilisations with distinct histories, cultures, and beliefs, which influenced their paths to indigenous growth and development, and oral literacy was a key feature of each civilisation. However, oral literacy has its downsides, especially as it concerns inter-generational transmission and sustainable preservation of history. For instance, a ton of historical data and stories, mostly in the form of written history, have been lost owing to the lack of a proper tracking system.
Oral historiography has always been beset by the incremental loss of its credibility and the regrettable loss of humongous amounts of oral historical data and stories due to a lack of documentation.
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Moreover, the more stories were orally transmitted, the less reliable they tended to become. Luckily, African History as a discipline has greatly benefited from the emergence of Oral History as an academic subfield in history. African History is now in less danger of not being preserved due to the methodologies of oral history that allow historians to collect oral historical data and transform them into written form. While the rest of the world has largely transitioned to written history and documentation, African historians are yet to achieve full documentation of histories that were formerly oral.
Nevertheless, practitioners must be mindful that written history cannot fully replace oral historical data, especially when it comes to the role of human historical sources in traditional religious practices across Africa, for instance. Thus, it should be noted that oral history and studies in oral history form only an integral and indispensable part of history as an academic discipline. Therefore, a major question that this conference seeks to answer is: What are the most important landmarks in oral historical studies in the past sixty years? As valuable and integral as oral history is to the continued existence of human societies, it faces a wide range of challenges, including a lack of access to its custodians.
Certain studies in oral history have stalled due to the inability to access a key informant; therefore, we expect participants at the conference to interrogate such issues as well as others, particularly those concerning the past, present, and continued roles of both academic and non-academic historians in the study of African societies. We expect presentations to cover unique and general issues in oral and written history while examining the breakthroughs and challenges of oral history as a sub-field of History. Ideally, we will place primacy on the past sixty years as a significant marker of when Professor Bolanle Awe started her academic journey as a historian. Also, we will welcome articles that seek directly to expand the frontiers of her works, be it reviews, critiques, and/or theoretical developments. However, studies that go further back in time will be accepted too. Another main turf of this celebrated scholar is women/gender studies in Nigeria – how did this additional frame intersect with oral and written histories?
This announcement calls for papers that will examine various themes related to the studies, challenges and breakthroughs of oral history, the impact of written histories, and the role of both academic and non-academic historians. We, therefore, invite papers on the following areas and closely related ones:
Bolanle Awe and Oral History
Bolanle Awe and Gender Studies
Bolanle Awe and WORDOC (Leadership, Mentorship and Succession)
Bolanle Awe and Yoruba/Nigerian History
Illustrious Women in Nigerian History
Women and Domesticity in Modern Nigeria
Women in the Nigerian Public Sphere
Nigerian Women in Popular Culture and the Arts
Gender Studies in Nigeria
Women Historians in the Past 60 Years
Studies of Oral History in the Past 60 Years
Professional Oral Historians Outside the Academy
Advances in African Historiography
Oral Traditions and Digital Technology
New Sources in African Historiography
Participants are expected to follow these guidelines:
Each proposal must include:
1) Title of the work and an abstract of 250 words
2) Name of the presenter (with the surname underlined)
3) Phone number
4) Email
5) Mailing address
6) Institutional affiliation
7) Three to five keywords that best describe the themes and topics relevant to the submission.
Proposals for Panels (3-5 presenters) must include:
1) Title of the panel and a collective summary of 250 words on the panel’s theme, including the title of each individual work
2) A 250-word abstract for each speaker’s presentation
3) Mailing address
4) Phone number
5) Email
6) Institutional affiliation of each presenter.
Interested authors should follow these editorial guidelines:
Please use Bolanle Awe at 90 Conference as the subject title for your submission.
Font: Times New Roman, Size 12, double-spaced.
All abstracts must be submitted by September 30, 2022, to: bolanleawe90@gmail.com
Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2022
Full papers are to be submitted by January 10, 2023
Conference Registration
Academics within Nigeria — N20, 000
Students within Nigeria — N15, 000
International Faculty — $100
International Students — $50
For enquiries, please contact: Olusegun Olopade bcmanager@toyinfalolanetwork.org
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Arts & Culture
Toyin Falola, Memories Of Africa: Home And Abroad In The United States
Published
1 day agoon
March 19, 2023
By Olusegun Olopade
Toyin Falola, Memories of Africa: Home and Abroad in the United States (Atlantic Migrations and the African Diaspora) | © March 2023
Book Details
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (March 24, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1496843487
ISBN-13: 978-1496843487
Memories of Africa: Home and Abroad in the United States suggests a new lens for viewing African Diaspora studies: the experiences of African memoirists who live in the United States. The book shows how African Diaspora memoirs beautifully and grippingly depict the experiences of African migrants over time through political, social, and cultural spheres. In reading African Diaspora memoirs from the transatlantic slave trade period to the present, a reader can understand the complexity of the African migrant legacy and evolution.
Author Toyin Falola argues that memoirs are significant not only in their interpretation of events conveyed by the memoirists but also in demonstrating how interpersonal and human the stories told can be. Memoirs are powerful because they are emotionally captivating and because important themes and events circulate around a particular person (in this case, the memoirist).
Undoubtedly, a memoir is significant because it can teach anyone about a part of the human experience, even if the “facts” are not described without bias. Through this sort of narrative, the reader cannot help but enter into the memoirist’s mind and, therefore, feel more empathy for them. In doing so, the reader can “feel” what the memoirist feels and “see” what the memoirist sees as clearly as is humanly possible. In this way, the historical events and life lessons become tangible and poignantly real to the reader.
Editorial Reviews
Memories of Africa makes a significant contribution to the study of the African Diaspora, African intellectual history, to our understanding of African autobiography, and more importantly to life studies. Falola provides fresh insights that will reinvigorate the field. — Olabode Ibironke, author of Remapping African Literature.
Memories of Africa opens a new dimension to the understanding of the experiences of home, space, and place, and their interactions in African and diaspora studies. — Adetayo Alabi, author of Oral Forms of Nigerian Autobiography and Life Stories.
Toyin Falola is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He has received over thirty lifetime career awards and sixteen honorary doctorates. He has written extensively on the African Diaspora, including The African Diaspora: Slavery, Modernity, and Globalization.
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12th Toyin Falola Annual International Conference On Africa And The African Diaspora (2023 TOFAC) Set To Hold
Published
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March 16, 2023
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Kenyatta University Holds Toyin Falola At 70 Conference
Published
1 month agoon
February 4, 2023
The Department of History, Archeology and Political Science of the Kenyatta University is set to hold a Toyin Falola at 70 Conference.
The conference with the theme “Post-Colonial Africa: Historical and Contemporary Realities” is scheduled to take place between May 10 and 12, 2023 at the Kenyatta University.
Description
Modern African economic, socio-cultural, and political realities have been considerably influenced and defined by colonialism. Colonialism created the foundation of the post-colonial. Since the start of the post-colonial and (especially) the post-cold war era, there has been increased academic interest in colonialism– both in the classic and the neo-colonial forms. There have also been considerable academic and non-academic efforts at decoloniality and decolonizing Africa. These efforts have led to studying and documenting African pre-colonial history, literature, and cultural intricacies to achieve self-determination and re-establish the African identity. It is, therefore, necessary and logically consistent with the above to study Africa’s past in relation to its present. Essentially, it is important that aside from examining the print of colonial pedagogy, methods, and philosophies, Africa is studied in the light of its actions, attempts at self-governance, and realities defined by its stakeholders.
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A considerable effort has been directed at researching, documenting, and analyzing Post-colonial Africa across different fields of the Arts and the Humanities. Through such efforts concepts such as neo-colonialism, political hegemony, economic instability, societal disillusionment, administrative lapses among others that touch on the African post-colonial condition have been explored by several researchers and academicians. However, the very basis of the evolution of knowledge and the foundation of the academic world is the consistent evaluation of knowledge, theories, and philosophies. As much as there has been enhanced scholarship around the aforementioned issues, there are still thematically important aspects of Post-Colonial Africa that are relatively unexplored or under-explored. New concepts, skepticism, and relatively new subject matters have developed with the continent’s evolution – particularly concerning socio-culture, administration, globalization, conflicts, diplomacy, and ideological paradigms. For instance, it may be important to define the extent to which pre-colonial Africa influences the post-colonial realities of its nation-states, regions, and Sub-regions, as it applies across respective fields.
Other relevant aspects of the post-colonial African reality like identity dynamics and minority politics, institutions and sub-institutions in Africa, diaspora dynamic, administrative evolution in Africa, Post-colonial gender dynamics in Africa, intercultural realities of distinct nation-states in Africa, cultural awareness, and preservation in Africa, decolonial legal education and practice, ideological politics in post-colonial African, among others. The COVID-19 pandemic presented new dynamics to interpret and understand the place of post-colonial Africa in the world in light of global power politics and diplomatic spate over the causes of COVID-19, vaccine politics, and international travel restrictions. COVID-19 highlighted the need to rethink post-colonial Africa’s readiness to respond to global challenges independently.
The Department of History, Archeology and Political Studies through the Research and Innovation Committee (DRIC) plans to host a conference that is directed at answering the conceptual questions that underline some key aspects of post-colonial Africa – as defined by the necessary contextual factors and underlining theories. The conference is expected to feature different themes and introduce concepts, arguments, and theories that are well-adjusted to current African realities.
The department also wishes to use the occasion to celebrate the 70-year life journey of Professor Toyin Falola, a world renowned Distinguished Professor of History and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Falola has dedicated his entire academic life, with over 150 titles under his name, reflecting on the African condition both in historical and contemporary terms. In March 2022, the Department hosted Professor Falola, who gave thought provoking lectures on “Decolonization of Africa Studies”. As a department, we are keen to use the conference to continue enriching our conversations around this and related themes, enhance our scholarly connections and collaborations, establish new research and publication partnerships as well as strengthen existing ones.
Sub-themes
The conference sub-themes will include but are not limited to the following:
- Decoloniality, and decolonization, as it intertwines with post-colonial studies
- Internationalization in the African region – key factors for consideration should include Pan-Africanism as examined through the lens of its basis, the status quo, and possible ways forward.
- Post-colonial economy and the role of the nation-state in establishing independent regional control
- Resource control as it affects neo-colonialistic affiliations and European hegemonic influence in Post-colonial Africa
- Liberal ideological predispositions and the socio-philosophical future of the African Nation states – with considerations to the influence of the youth demography
- Developmental politics in Post-colonial Africa
- Gender dynamics and politics in Post-colonial Africa
- Post-colonial Literature and the future of the arts in Africa
- Migration, conflicts, and peace actions in post-colonial Africa
- Regional collaboration and diplomatic politics in Post-Colonial Africa
Participation
The conference is expected to attract participation from academicians, researchers, experts and practitioners in the area of African history and other related humanities and social science disciplines. These shall be drawn from mainly Kenyan and other African institutions as well as from outside the Africa continent. The conference will allow for a blended mode where some participants will be present on-site at Kenyatta university while others will present online.
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SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
Prospective participants are encouraged to send abstracts of between 250 and 500 words, including their full contact details (title, name, address, email address and telephone number) as well as their institutional affiliation by 30th February, 2023 to: haps-research@ku.ac.ke
Final Output
Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 5th March 2023 and asked to prepare full papers to be presented during the conference. The official language of the conference will be English. Papers presented at the conference will be peer reviewed and published in an edited volume.
Important Dates
27th January, 2023: Call for Papers/Abstracts
30th February, 2023: Deadline for Receipt of Abstracts
5th March 2023: Notification of Acceptance of Abstracts/Papers
15th April 2023: Deadline for receipt of Full papers
20th April, 2023: Registration begins
1st May, 2023: End of Registration
10th to 12 May 2023: Conference Dates
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