TOYIN FALOLA: THE DECOLONIAL MOMENTS

HUMA African Epistemologies Advanced Seminar Series

Speaker: Prof. Toyin Falola (University of Texas at Austin, US)

Introduction: African Studies have been carried out at different times by different personalities with different worldviews and agendas. This has resulted in the availability of other representations of African cultures and the past. Although the discipline of African Studies was not recognized as an academic field in Western universities, African American "organic" intellectuals have presented the history of Africa in ways that contributed to the elevation of black pride.[1] In the periods 1500–1950, imperial historiography stood as African historiography until decolonization activities brought about a new African historiography. The labels "decolonizing" and "de-colonial moments" encapsulate defining moments within the periods after the Second World War (1945+), from the start of political decolonization (the 1950s) to the present time. The era concerns the identification of watershed moments in the course of the advancement of decolonization. Simply put, it is the presentation of a decolonization timeline with highlighted moments of bulk academic and political movements.

[1] See, for instance, two books: W. E. B. Du Bois, Africa, Its Geography, People and Products (1930; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); and W. E. B. Du Bois, Africa: Its Place in Modern History (1930; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

Toyin Falola

About the speaker: Toyin Falola, Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin. He is an Honorary Professor, University of Cape Town, and Extraordinary Professor of Human Rights, University of the Free State. He had served as the General Secretary of the Historical Society of Nigeria, the President of the African Studies Association, Vice-President of UNESCO Slave Route Project, and the Kluge Chair of the Countries of the South, Library of Congress. He is a member of the Scholars' Council, Kluge Center, the Library of Congress. He has received over thirty lifetime career awards and fourteen honorary doctorates. He has written extensively on knowledge systems. His forthcoming books include Autoethnography and African Knowledge Systems (Cambridge University Press); Decolonizing African Studies (University of Rochester Press); African Spirituality and Knowledge Systems (Bloomsbury); and Religious Beliefs and Knowledge System in Africa (Rowman and Littlefield). R ead more

More about HUMA African Epistemologies Advanced Seminar Series

Wed, 12 May 2021 -

16:00 to 17:00

VENUE:

Zoom event
Register here: https://uct-za.zoom.us/j/98166081153

CONTACT INFORMATION:

E: huma@uct.ac.za