Sent: Friday, December 14, 2018 2:22 PM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Models of Scholarship: The Falola Network, a Transnational Research and Publication System [ Edited]
thanks, Gloria.
your keynote at the falola@65 conference would be priceless towards giving flesh to this characterization.
i am also seeing this ideational picture in terms of a mapping representing the structuration of African Studies and beyond enabled by the Falola Network.
what is the actualized and potential significance of the initiatives of this scholarly matrix to the interdisciplinary constitution of scholarly fields that is African Studies?
can it have, has it influence beyond this multi-disciplinary centre?
in the understanding that along with sharing front-line scholarship with scholars, others could also be educated through such sharing, i proposed a cover story on Toyin Falola to TIME magazine and one could do so again to the same international news magazine and others like Newsweek and the Economist.
such a proposal might be better appreciated if presented in a distillation of answers to such questions as i have asked above in ways the general public can readily appreciate.
one could also ask qs about the contributions of toyin falola and his network in generating ideas and initiating and driving projects that speak to deep human concerns rising from within but going beyond the arcana of disciplinary specializations.
perhaps one could reference falola's contribution to what he describes as 'brain-circulation', the cyclical motion of people, ideas and initiatives across the world, exemplified by the constellating of scholarship and scholars within and in relation to Africa from his base in the US, a response to the challenge of brain drain and the consequent de-enablement of Africa in the global knowledge space.
to what degree does this orientation reflect historical paradigms of development in relation to shifting statuses of scholarly centre and peripheries, from the earlier migration of educational ideas from Germany to the US through the presence of US citizens in German universities in the earlier centuries of the history of the US university, as described, among other sources, in The Workshop of the World, to the role in technological development around the world of returnees to their home countries to the similarities and difference between those contexts and Falola's effort to contribute to building what may be described as radiations of creative possibility by helping to nourish potentials within and in relation to his mother continent using the enablements of his presence at disciplinary and geographical centres of power.
among other ways one could interpret The Falola Network in terms of burning questions of the day, also resonant across history.
Falola's work in terms of his individual creativity and his institutional transcontinental organizational may be examined in terms of a comparison with the ancient Greek polymath and institutional innovator Aristotle as 'philosopher and organizer of research', a characterization reflecting an understanding of Aristotle's foundational influence in the configuration of Western scholarship as due both to his individual genius and his capacity for interpreting the research done by others, in the context of his creating and running an institution in the terms of what is now known as a research centre.
Aristotle being paradigmatic as a polymathic research innovator, other research innovators, particularly polymathic figures, may be compared to their closeness to or distance from that paradigm. A reflection of the Aristotelian construction of the epistemologies and subject matter that underlie Western scholarship is suggested by Falola's 'Ritual Archives' and 'Pluriversalism' essays in whuch he argues for a rethinking of the role of classical African thought in the contemporary dominance of Western systems in modern scholarship and education.
Falola's personal research scope and that of the network in which he is a driving force does not extend into the sciences, like that of Aristotle does, and the degree to which any scholarly initiative can foundationally rework the modes and subjects of scholarly investigation as Aristotle did at the headwaters of the Western tradition, is questionable, although not perhaps impossible as the horizons of understanding expand, necessitating new investigative foundations, but the multiplicity of connections between researchers in different countries working on projects to which Falola is central might be unique for an individual in the history of scholarship , as different from an institution, such scope being traditionally demonstrated by institutions made up of many coordinating units and directors.
What the Falola Network represents, therefore, may be seen as an institution without a geographical centre- can Falola's UTexas office be seen as the centre?- without a dedicated budget stream, managed largely as a digitally coordinated, rhizomatic network, driven more by the selfless pursuit of knowledge than in terms of financial gain accruing to its members, as in economic gains academics make through publishing.
A magnificent example of scholarly possibility, in particular, and human possibility, in general, in which the central currency of influence is not monetary or any form of material profit or political power but the quest for knowledge.
The Ifa network of scholar priests from Falola's Yorubaland origins and their brethren among other African systems will be proud to see this magnification of their example of relentless cognitive quest as they traveled far and wide seeking knowledge in terms of a web of fellow devotees spread across vast distances, journeys even taken inadvertently across the terrible Middle Passage, leading to the ongoing flowering of ancient knowledge in novel forms in new lands, surviving and thriving in spite of the grim circumstances of the method of arrival.
--This is good. We should also add some numbers- the number of books, scholars, book series, conferences and photos to date for the record.
Professor Gloria EmeagwaliProfessor of History
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2018 9:59 PM
To: usaafricadialogue; Yoruba Affairs
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Models of Scholarship: The Falola Network, a Transnational Research and Publication System [ Edited]--Models of Scholarship
The Falola Network
a Transnational Research and Publication System
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Toyin Falola
The Falola Network (TFN), a transnational research and publication system of scholars and projects, integrating scholars and publishers in various continents, is an initiative that takes to a high and possibly unprecedented level the international culture of scholarship.
It consists of individual books, book series, scholarly articles and conferences organised by Toyin Falola in collaboration with others or organised or written in relation to Toyin Falola, along with two rich Google groups organised by Falola as well as scholars inspired or enabled by Toyin Falola and the initiatives he is central to actualizing.
Toyin Falola is a scholar whose academic education is in history but whose self education and publications span practically every branch of the humanities and a large swathe of the social sciences, a scope reflected in his current appointment as the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
The initiatives associated with Falola are increasingly growing as a defining force in scholarship on Africa across the humanities and social sciences.
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