Toyin Falola@65 Conference : African Knowledges and Alternative Futures
A Cognitive and Cultural Explosion
Part 1
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
I salute you from the cognitive and cultural explosion that is the Toyin Falola@65 Conference, the theme of which is " African Knowledges and Alternative Futures". The conference aspires to "critically interrogate the state of knowledge production in Africa, and to review the state of cumulative knowledge about Africa".
Its ultimate goal is to contribute to building pluriversalist frameworks in the development of knowledge. Pluriversality is a term developed by Toyin Falola to indicate the creation of multiple centres of epistemic authority to replace the current dominance of Western thought as the one universal knowledge platform. In the process of achieving this goal, the conference also seeks to better situate, in the world of scholarship, and in the larger field of experience as a whole, the work of Toyin Falola, an encyclopedic scholar in the continuum between classical and contemporary African existence in its various expressions across the humanities and social sciences.
We concluded the first day of the conference yesterday, the 29th of January 2018, a magnificent experience in which scholarship and royalty converged in a pageant that invoked the secular authorities into their midst, generating a confluence of scholars, secular politics and classical monarchy in a disciplined riot of colour and sound,a celebration situating the indefatigable labours of the scholar being celebrated within the nexus constituted by the totality of human experience.
The experience has been wonderful, from the trip with some other participants from my Lagos base to the conference venue at the University of Ibadan, to energizing minds with various people who converged from Sweden to the US, from South Africa to Nigeria, to enable this encounter of persons and creative possibilities, to the welcoming reception in his hotel room by Toyin Falola on the day before the conference, to taking a night walk through the magnificent University of Ibadan campus, reflecting on its incidental evocation of the focus of this scholarly and cultural explosion to the movement between passionate scholarly presentations and the royal pageantry dramatized by the presence of the Alaafin of Oyo, the spiritual head of Yorubaland, to the cinematic delight represented by the film show that concluded the first day.
I would like to share with you some pictures and a video from the experience, beginning from Sunday, when I travelled with some other participants from Lagos to the venue at Ibadan. This very short evocative piece covers a part of Sunday the 28th. My next post will complete the account of that day and move on to Monday the 29th and hopefully, Tuesday, the 30th.
I begin with the figures at the centre of the planning and execution that made possible this combination of scholarship and cultural effervescence. Beyond these four are many more, some of whom we shall encounter as we proceed.
The indefatigable Dr. Adeshina Afolayan, Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Chairman Local Conference Organising Committee, who met, in Lagos, participants coming in from abroad and from Lagos and organized our movement to Ibadan. He demonstrates the dynamism of a meteor as well as a being who can enter all corners to ferret out what needs to be done to actualize this awesome conference congregating various institutions and individuals, academic and non-academic, from across the world.
The remarkable Dr. Samuel Oloruntoba, Thabo Mbeki Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, visionary and genius of commitment, Convenor-General of the conference, veteran of conference organisation across continents
The restlessly dynamic Dr. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Babcock University,Director of Conference Administration, assuming all roles as necessary, from conference secretary to catering organiser and dispenser, visible everywhere, cannot be pinned down anywhere as she migrates at speed between locations and responsibilities.This picture is from the frenetic activity welcoming delegates on Sunday,the 28th, in which she multi-tasked between providing food for us as well as working on conference logistics. Her hand movements indicate the disciplined frenzy of the moment.
Wale Ghazal, the second presence of Toyin Falola. Where Falola is, there he is, making sure the great scholar's multifarious itinerary across continents goes smoothly. Director of Conference Logistics. I profoundly apologise for not giving you a picture of his debonair presence. I intend to do that in my second post when I shall have again encountered his busy, mobile presence.
Other figures in the Falola universe and beyond, who have played or are playing a role in this conference, will be depicted as we move on.
Enroute to Ibadan from Lagos in the bus organised by the conference organisers for participants coming in from abroad and from Lagos after meeting with Nigeria coordinator Adeshina Afolayan. Foreground is Samuel Oloruntoba. Beside him is Dr. Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams, Creighton University, USA, who got her PhD with Falola as her supervisor at the University of Austin, Texas. The eyes of the conference delegates are alight with anticipation as the scenic route passes by, a backdrop to our discussion of negative Western intervention in Africa in sustaining destructive rulers and the challenges of Nigerian universities.
Camraderie on the bus. Left is Dr. Edith Phaswana, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute and on right is Dikeledi A. Mokoena, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership institute.
Arrival at conference centre University of Ibadan. Top right is Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams.To her right is Mikael Janvid, Stockholm University, Sweden, who will be presenting a paper on African epistemology, ideas from Africa about how knowledge may be gained and assessed. Centre, backing the camera, is Dikeledi Mokoena.
Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams leaves for her hotel room after regaling us with an account of her research on how strategies of naming were used in relegating classical African medical knowledge and practice, a central thread of her paper at the conference "The Politics of Labels: Imperial Categorizations and Indigenous African Medicine".
Conference poster, projecting Falola's scholarly range and vocational flexibility in terms of symbols constituting a map of Africa in which is embedded a triumphant portrait of the maestro. the poster also evokes the institutional reach of his influence through a global listing of sponsors of the conference through their logos as well as stating the royal and academic figures and figures from the Oyo state government, the state of which Ibadan is the capital, who shall be at the conference. The name of Rauf Aregbesola, governor of Osun State, who officiated at the opening ceremony on the 29th, is not included, perhaps because his presence had not been confirmed when the poster went to press.
At the top of the configuration is an image of a bird looking back over its elegantly displayed tail feathers. That is the Sankofa symbol of the Ghanaian origin Adinkra system of knowledge, in which philosophical ideas are expressed through visual symbols. The bird represents the need to critically examine the past in order to better appreciate the present and the future. It thereby dramatizes the exploration of the deposit of knowledge represented by classical African thought, in tandem with other bodies of knowledge, represented by Falola's pluralistic epistemology.
It also evokes his vocation as an historian, a student of the past, particularly one who integrates the study of the historiography, conceptions of the nature of history and of how it may be studied, developed in classical African cultures, with historiographic thought from other cultures, such as that made available in the Western academy, from Herodotus to Carr and beyond, evoking foundational figures in Western historiography from ancient Greece to the twentieth century, from the Yoruba distinction between forms of knowledge represented by imo, knowledge and gbabo, hearsay, and therefore of the basis for ascribing factuality to historical accounts reflected in their conceptions of itan, narrative, and the griotic traditions of Guinea mediated through the recitation of the griot Babu Conde presented by Camara Laye in Guardians of the Word, among other ideas and traditions from Africa and the world.
To the right of the Sankofa symbol is a representation of the majestic forms of the pyramids of Egypt, visualizing one of the greatest feats of imagination and engineering ever constructed, its mode of creation , at such a level of perfection and grandeur still a mystery.
To the left of the Sankofa bird is an abstract form that may evoke a camel, a primary means of transport in North Africa, thus suggesting the traffic of populations though which ideas, creativity and other possibilities move across Africa and between Africa and the world.
Shaping the bottom of the image is a portrait from Nigeria's Ife, representing a sculptural form that is famous as one of humanity's most powerful depictions of the human face, one of its most sublime evocations of idealized humanity.
Thus, the image at the centre of the conference poster dramatizes Toyin Falola's mobility of subjects, of disciplines and of geography as he grapples with exploring and configuring Africa through his scholarship.
To be continued.
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