Toyin Falola


Toyin Omoyeni Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. Falola is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and has served as the president of the African Studies Association. He is currently the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Biography

Early life and education

Falola was born on 1 January 1953, in Ibadan, Nigeria. He earned his B.A. and Ph.D. in History at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, in Nigeria. In December 2020, he earned an academic D.Litt. in Humanities from the University of Ibadan.

Academic career

Falola began his academic career as a schoolteacher in Pahayi, Ogun State, in 1970, and by 1981 he was a lecturer at the University of Ife. He joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, and has also held short-term teaching appointments at the University of Cambridge in England, York University in Canada, Smith College, Massachusetts, in the United States, The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, and the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, Nigeria.

Research and pedagogy

The primary focus of Falola's research is African history since the 19th century, in the tradition of the Ibadan School. His geographic areas of interest include Africa, Latin America and the United States; and his thematic fields include Atlantic history, diaspora and migration, empire and globalization, intellectual history, international relations, religion and culture.
Falola is the author and editor of more than one hundred books, as well as the general editor of the Cambria African Studies Series.
Recent courses he has taught include "Introduction to Traditional Africa", an interdisciplinary course on the peoples and cultures of Africa, designed for students with varied backgrounds in African Studies, and "Epistemologies of African/Black Studies", a course on the rise and evolution of African/Black Studies, with a focus on pedagogy, methodology, and the historical development of scholarship in the field.

Academic honours and awards

Falola has received honorary doctorates, lifetime career awards and honors in various parts of the world, including:
Falola served as the president of the African Studies Association in 2014 and 2015.

Books

Islam and Christianity in West Africa. With Biodun Adediran,.The Military in Nineteenth Century Yoruba Politics,.The Rise and Fall of Nigeria's Second Republic, 1979–1984. With Julius Ihonvbere,.Transport Systems in Nigeria. Edited,.Britain and Nigeria: Exploitation or Development? Edited..Modern Nigeria: a tribute to G. O. Olusanya. Edited,.Yoruba Historiography,.Rural Development Problems in Nigeria. Edited with S. A. Olanrewaju,.The Political Economy of Health in Africa. Edited with Dennis Hyavyar,.Warfare and Diplomacy in Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in honor of Robert Smith. With Robin Law,.Pawnship in Africa: debt bondage in historical perspective. Edited with Paul. E. Lovejoy,.Religious Militancy and Self-assertion: Islam and Politics in Nigeria. With M. H. Kukah,.Violence in Nigeria: the crisis of religious politics and secular ideologies,.Yoruba Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge in Africa,.Culture, Politics and Money among the Yorubas. With Akanmu Adebayo,.African Politics in Postimperial Times, with Richard L. Sklar,.Culture and Customs of the Yoruba. With Akintunde Akinyemi,.Nationalism and Africa Intellectuals,.Yoruba Warlords of the Nineteenth Century, with D. Oguntomisin and G. O. Oguntomisin,.Culture and Customs of Ghana. With Steven J. Salm,.The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in honor of Toyin Falola.,.Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide., Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa, with Paul E. Lovejoy,.The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in honor of Toyin Falola. Edited by Adebayo Oyebade,.African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective, with Steven J. Salm,.Yoruba Creativity: Fiction, Language, Life and Songs, with Ann Genova,.
  • ,.A History of Nigeria, with Matthew M. Heaton,.The Atlantic World, 1450–2000, with Kevin David Roberts,.The Power of African Cultures,.Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. With Ann Genova..Narrating War and Peace in Africa. Edited with Hetty Ter Haar,.Africa, Empire and Globalization. Essays in Honor of A. G. Hopkins, with Emily Brownell. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC,.
  • ,.Africa: An Encyclopedia of Culture and Society 3 vols. Edited with Daniel Jean-Jacques,.Encyclopedia of the Yoruba. With Akintude Akinyemi,.Decolonizing African Knowledge: Autoethnography and African Epistemologies,.African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems: Sacred Words and Holy Realms.,. A History of West Africa., African Memoirs and Cultural Representations., ISBN. Global Yorùbá: Regional And Diasporic Networks.,.

TOFAC

In Nigeria, there is a conference named after Toyin Falola by the Ibadan Cultural Studies Group; a group chaired by Professor Ademola Dasylva. The first Toyin Falola International Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora was held in 2011 at the University of Ibadan. The second was hosted in Lagos by the Centre for Black African Arts and Civilization under the watch of the director general of the centre Professor Tunde Babawale.

Additional reading

  • Adeboye, O. A. Toyin Falola and Yoruba Historiography: The Man, The Mask, The Muse. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, 2010.
  • Bangura, Abdulkarim. Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies. Springer, 2015.