Dear Adepoju:
Thank you for your careful response to my intervention this morning. You have raised objections to my use of certain words. I take it to mean that you are offended by them. I offer my sincere apologies. But I owe it to the members of this platform to clarify my use of the "offending words." I am also hoping that after reading my submission, you might change your earlier opinion about my response to Professor Falola's defense of your scholarship. Mine was offered in the same spirit as his.
Quarrel:
I should have put "quarrel" in quote. By "quarrel" I do not mean to be offensive. I refer to academic debates as "fights" or "quarrels." Pardon or forgive my error in judgement in applying this word to describe your debates with your interlocutors. When I said your critics are right, I qualified it with "often." I take the approach that everyone correcting me is "right." It is left for me to do what I want to do with their opinions. My thinking is that the best compliment anyone can pay to me in the academy is to take the time to read me and "quarrel" with me. Quarreling with me is a right disposition in and of itself. I like to have fun. Also I hardly respond to my critics. I spend the time to learn from their criticisms. If my memory serves, me right I have never responded to a critic since my first book came out in 1993.
Not offending traditions:
I mentioned this in one of our previous private discussions because as a Christian theologian or philosophers I have seen people in other traditions push back when Christian theologians go into their fields or traditions. There is a whole protocol emerging on how best to do comparative studies or to appropriate traditions that are not the writer's own.
Good advice:
Three things here: First, the "good advice" does not refer to your critics. But from me; I am referring to you listening to me and considering my opinion. Second, my brother, I said "good" advice. Of course, no one should be cajoled to take bad advice. You have the right to categorize the advices coming from your critics. I expect that you take the good ones and throw out the bad ones. Third, a good advice even if it is not coming from me, your friend, should be taken. Now we can debate what makes an advice good. But once we settle that is it is good, it should be rationally taken as good for decision making. I was careful not to define "good" for you. That would be presumptuous on my part.
Growing:
I did not use "growing" to mean that you are being educated about how to do scholarship. In all humility, I tell people I am still growing. Every scholar is still growing. I ask my graduate students: What will you be when you grow up? When I was consulting on Wall Street, our firm used to ask the CEOs of the top 20 investments banks in the world, "What will your firm be when it grows up?" Growth for me is a matter of casting a vision for a flourishing time ahead. It is a matter of actualizing one's potentiality. Every existent being is on the course of actualizing his or her potentiality, all things being equal. Only God is a pure actuality, actus purus. In process theology/philosophy, it is even argued that God is still growing, still becoming. For me, growing connotes becoming. It is not a bad word in my lexicon.
If you have read me charitably you would found out that the word, growing." was not meant to cast any aspersion on your scholarship. My whole intervention was to defend your type of scholarship. If you are offended, Sir, I take the word back. I am sorry.
Community Consensus Standards
They are always there, implicit or explicit. But we do not make a fetish out of them. They can be destabilized by individuals. And I have no problem with you or any person decentering, de-stablishing, or deconstructing a paradigm or standard of excellence. I do not particularly follow rules. But rules are there all the time.
Let me end with a story my late professor Max Stackhouse told me. Stackhouse was a student of Paul Tillich at Harvard in the early 1960s. One day, in doctoral seminar, a student asked the great Tillich: "Why do we need to read the masters?" Tillich replied: "You master the masters and after you have mastered them you throw them out of the window." This implies that the one who is throwing out the masters would establish his or her own standards that would become the community's standards for the next generation of students and thinkers. Of course, this will be overthrown.
I was not advocating that you make a fetish out of established standards of academic scholarship.
Conclusion
Adepoju, my friend, you know I do not intervene much in debates on this platform. I think you misunderstood my response to TF's intervention. I am sorry if you are offended by my words. I am not the type that insults anyone.
Blessings be upon you, my dear friend. Thanks.
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University
From: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 11:38 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Toyin Adepoju is a genius!
I need to respond carefully to this fine but for me deeply disturbing piece from Nimi.
I object very strongly to the tone of the following, particularly the sections highlighted by me :
''... Adepoju's eclectic scholarship. I regularly read what his critics say and I often call him to say they are right and he should learn from them instead of quarreling with them. Two days ago, he told me that he has learned a lot from Professor Agbetuyi, who is one of his fiercest critics on this platform. I have always encouraged him to pay serious attention to Agbetuyi's objections because they would help him to grow as scholar. Agbetuyi has rendered an important service to Adepoju by holding his intellectual legs to the fire. I even told him that Professor Agbetuyi has a point about the need to be much more careful in using wisdoms from traditions other than his own. I said he should do his scholarship in ways that do not offend the owners of the traditions. My advice to Adepoju was that as a scholar he would need to pay attention to some community consensus on standards. He takes good advice. Adepoju is growing. His form of creativity is strange and fascinating. I wish him luck.''
Quarrel:
I should have put "quarrel" in quote. By quarreling I do not mean to be offensive. I refer to academic debates as "fights" or "quarrels." Pardon or forgive my errors. When I said they are right, I qualified it with "often." I take the approach that everyone correcting is right. It is left for me to do what I want to do with their opinions. My thinking that the best compliment anyone can pay to you in the academy is to take the time to read you and "quarrel" with me. That is a right disposition in and of itself.
Not offending tradition:
I mentioned this in our previous discussions because as a Christian theologian or philosophers I have seen people in other traditions push back when Christian theologians go into their fields or traditions. There is a whole protocol emerging on how best to do comparative studies or appropriating traditions that are not the writer's own.
Good advice:
Third things here: First, the "good advice" does not refer to your critics. But from me; I am referring to you listening to me and considering my opinion. Third, my brother, I said "good" advice. Of course, no one should be cajoled to take bad advice. You have the right to categorize the advices coming from your critics. I expect that you take the good ones and throw out the bad ones.
Growing:
I did not use growing to mean that you being educated about how to do scholarship. In all humility, I tell people I am still growing. Every scholar is still. I ask my graduate students: What will you be when you grow up? When I was consulting on Wall Street, our firm used to ask the CEOs of the top 20 investments banks in the world, "What will your firm be when it grows up?" Growth for me is a matter of casting a vision for a flourishing time ahead. If you have read me charitably you would found out that it word was not meant to cast any aspersion on your scholarship. My whole intervention was to defend type of scholarship. If you are offended, Sir, I take the word back. I am sorry.
Community Consensus Standards
These are always there, implicit or explicit. But we do not make a fetish out of them. They can be destabilize by individuals. And I have no problem with you or any person decentering, de-stablishing, or deconstructing a paradigm or standards of excellence. I do not particularly follow rules. Rules are there all the time. Let end with a story my late professor, who was a student of Paul Tillich at Harvard, told me. One day, in doctoral seminar in the 1960s, a student asked the famous thinker, why do they as students need to read the masters. Tillich replied: "You master the masters first and after you have mastered then you throw them out of the window." This implies that the one who is throwing out the masters would establish his or her own standards, which will become the community's standards for the next generation of students and thinkers. Of course, this will be overthrown.
Conclusion
Adeopju, my friend, you know I do not intervene much in debates on this forum. I think you misunderstood my response to TF's intervention. I am sorry if you are offended by words. I am not the type that insults anyone. Blessings be upon you. Thanks.
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University
I see Nimi as making assumptions he is not in a position to make. Those critics he references are not seen by me as being right, thus I cant be described by Nimi within his self constructed paradigm as a person who ''takes good advice'' an instructed person who ''is growing'' through being educated about how to do scholarship.
I am eager to learn but am not pleased about being described as learning through agreeing with people whom I actually see as needing to learn from me.
I am particularly puzzled about the description of me as quarrelling with anyone.
I have had repeatedly to educate Agbetuyi about rules of scholarly discourse and he seems to have refrained from persisting in his style on account of the registers of reference I invoked indicating he ought to know better.
I listened patiently to Nimi on the phone about ''I even told him that Professor Agbetuyi has a point about the need to be much more careful in using wisdoms from traditions other than his own''
but have not been able to work out yet how to explain to Nimi about the need to distinguish in this context between an insular nativism, a tradition bound conservatism, and genuine sensitivity to the intrinsic integrity of a culture.
Agbetuyi has been stuck in a non-progressive ethnocentrism within which Yoruba spiritualities are approached as fixed icons modification of which is sacrilege.
Spiritualities do not grow that way.
I gain from Agbetuyi from the stimulus I get from responding to his challenges, a process I am happy to continue as long as he operates in terms of mutually respectful discourse.
I admire Nimi's academic record and he has been helpful in acting as a referee on my PhD and fellowship applications.
Along these lines, he has mentioned ''My advice to Adepoju was that as a scholar he would need to pay attention to some community consensus on standards.''
I have concluded, however, that I am happy as an Independent Scholar using what formal training I have got so far.
Along those lines, I urge all my friends and admirers of my work to consider donating to my initiative as an Independent Scholar.
Great thanks, brethren.
toyin
On Wed, 2 Dec 2020 at 15:21, Nimi Wariboko <nimiwari@msn.com> wrote:
Dear Professor Falola:
You have spoken well. You have said publicly what you told me years ago. You once said me that: "Adepoju is a genius and he does not know it." I came to know Adepoju through you; I think around 2011 when in a private email you brought the two of us together with others to debate an issue on death and afterlife. Like you, I see Adepoju as a highly talented scholar, an extraordinary thinker, a genius. In December 2018, I made efforts to meet with him in Lagos. I was visiting Nigeria from Boston and I had the option to land at Abuja or Port Harcourt, but because I wanted to meet with him I went through Lagos.
He is different in his approach to scholarship and I have never been afraid of people who do things differently. Like you, I have been encouraging him to systematically put his ideas in book forms and also to pursue a Ph.D. Actually he applied to Oxford and the University of London but they had problems locating an appropriate supervisor for him.
Almost every week I call him on the phone to encourage him in his work and to mutually share ideas with him. I send him books and essays.
Please permit me to give a personal testimony to drive home the point you have made. Sometimes, we need to do the extraordinary thing to allow people like Adepoju to realize their dreams. I am a beneficiary of such favors. I will not be where I am today if others did not discover me and nurtured my growth. So here is my testimony. I give it in the spirit that if I could do, then Adepoju will do. He is easily more gifted than me.
I was once like him—or still like him in many ways. I dabble into too many fields. The reason why I did my PhD in two years and came out with summa cum laude is that I had published five books and 18 articles before I even started my doctoral work at Princeton. Years before I started the doctoral program, NYU had invited me to teach as an adjunct lecturer without a doctoral degree. I was invited based on my eclectic publications. Yet after a year or so, I was evaluated and promoted to Assistant Professor of Social Sciences. Yes, in those days at NYU even adjuncts had to go through rigorous evaluations to be promoted. The reason why NYU gave me that special title of Assistant Professor of Social Sciences was to recognize and celebrate my eclectic scholarship. The scholars there did not disdain my work because it was all over the map. I taught a history and African studies related course at NYU. At the same time, I was also an adjunct professor at New York Institute of Finance where I taught two courses, mergers and acquisitions, and security analysis.
To come back to my doctoral degree: I completed it in two years. I started the doctoral program in September 2004, went through all the seminars and comprehensive examinations, and completed the dissertation in early August 2006. But I could not defend it immediately because the school was closed for the summer. I defended as soon as the classes resumed in fall 2006. (It takes on the average six years to complete a doctoral degree in America, even after your master degree. In theological studies it often takes more than six years because of language studies) After the defense I went back to pastoring a church full time in New York City for a year. I came back to the academy in July 2007, joining Andover Theological School, one of the oldest graduate institutions in North America. It was started by the Puritans, the same guys that started Harvard. I became a full professor in 2009 with an endowed chair when my doctoral classmates where still writing their dissertations.
When I was hired the Andover faculty saw my talents and started me as an associate professor with a chair. And the president of the school told me if I could produce enough work to meet the standards required for promotion I would be elevated to the rank of a full professor in two years. This was all written down and signed as a contract. He was not playing any game. By the grace of God, I did it after the usual rigorous external and internal evaluations. I became a full professor on May 9, 2009. (Aside: Andover merged with Yale University in 2016)
The year I was promoted to full professor I was elected the chair of Ethics Faculty Colloquium of the nine graduate institutions (including Harvard and Boston University) that then constituted the Boston Theological Institute. The senior colleagues in my academic field had enough confidence in my scholarship to ask me to lead them as the chair. I served in that position for three years.
Somebody like Adepoju can easily replicate what I have done. He could do his PhD in a similar record time. He could become a professor in also a record time. He far more talented than me. I thank God that American professors saw me and gave me a space to flourish. They broke all standing institutional rules to promote and celebrate me.
Professor Falola is right, let us give Adepoju a chance. He is unconventional, and let us nurture him. When he is wrong let us correct him in a scholarly and respectable way. This idea of shaming him or treating him as less than a scholar because he does not have a PhD or because he is not affiliated with a university does not help the great cause for the search for wisdom or truth. I did not have a PhD for a long time and I was accepted into my academic circles, invited to conferences. For a long time all I had was my first degree in economics (first class honors, University of Port Harcourt) obtained in 1984 and a 1992 MBA (finance and accounting, Columbia).
It was David Henige—a man I had never met—in 1997 that introduced me to Professor Falola and encouraged him to publish my essay on transaction cost economics, which I applied to explain African economic history. Henige read an essay I had written on economic history when I was an investment banker on Wall Street and he made sure it was published. That essay later brought me some fame. Henige wrote to me stating that I should send the paper to Falola, who was then editing the journal of African Economic History. Henige said his external reviewers rejected the paper because it was not "history" enough, but he thought they were wrong and shortsighted. But he could not publish it in his journal because of the rejection. I did not know the difference between history proper and economics/economic history then. I just dabbled into things that caught my fancy with only an MBA as a graduate degree. Henige did not shoot me down, he pointed me to an outlet that suited my work. I was still an ordinary "crass" investment banker when that essay was being taught to doctoral students in economic history and African history at the London School of Economics. My testimony here is that others gave me a chance to make mistakes and grow. Adepoju deserves the same favor.
I support Professor Falola in calling for a change in the way some of us on this platform discourage Adepoju's eclectic scholarship. I regularly read what his critics say and I often call him to say they are right and he should learn from them instead of quarreling with them. Two days ago, he told me that he has learned a lot from Professor Agbetuyi, who is one of his fiercest critics on this platform. I have always encouraged him to pay serious attention to Agbetuyi's objections because they would help him to grow as scholar. Agbetuyi has rendered an important service to Adepoju by holding his intellectual legs to the fire. I even told him that Professor Agbetuyi has a point about the need to be much more careful in using wisdoms from traditions other than his own. I said he should do his scholarship in ways that do not offend the owners of the traditions. My advice to Adepoju was that as a scholar he would need to pay attention to some community consensus on standards. He takes good advice. Adepoju is growing. His form of creativity is strange and fascinating. I wish him luck.
Professor Falola, thanks for this intervention.
Sincerely,
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University
From: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 6:51 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Toyin Adepoju is a genius!
Great ones:
Your humble moderator now has to intervene! I think the direction in which the Ifa argument is going is making me uncomfortable, the inability to accept creativity, the failure to see the Esu in Adepoju---no path is straight, nothing should be concluded. Esu is the god that I have also adopted, and I did the longest book on this unique Yoruba god. All attempts to "kill" Esu (to use the concept of "kill" that Wariboko deploys), has failed.
I discovered Toyin Adepoju—Toyin Adepoju did not discover me! It was when I began to read him—the eclectic nature of his writings, his ability to turn the micro into the macro, his extraordinary talent to tap into the Nino and convert it into the mega, that I sought him out. I seek out people. It is a small contribution to the concept of the "informal" and "people" that Dr. Adeshina Afolayan of the University of Ibadan contributed to this forum that led to my knowing him. I contacted him and said we should meet at Ibadan. This is intellectual leadership. You must seek out people.
First, I thought Toyin Adepoju was a woman. As Adepoju began to talk about the vagina, I thought s/he was a lesbian. His writings can be clueless as to his identity. He can be irascible. And so what? The God of Israel was also temperamental. Blasphemy!
Thinking that he was she, an invitation was extended to him by our Art Dept to come and give a lecture. I wrote to them that I don't think he was she! I did not know how that invitation ended. I reinvited him back to Austin to be part of the Nimi Wariboko conference, but that is another story.
I extended a book contract to him to write on Ifa, as I saw new edges and frontiers in what he was doing. He signed the contract, but he did not deliver. What a shame!
I sought to meet him in person. And we met in Lagos, then at Ibadan. I had lunch with him. He interviewed me. I took him to my pepper soup joint—alas! he does not eat animals.
I advised him to register for a Ph.D. I got him a supervisor. I assured that I would fully fund the Ph.D. I nominated myself as the External Examiner. I had a three-way conversation with his would-be supervisor whom I chose for him. He thanked me and said he is not interested.
We are dealing with a genius whose ways of thinking may be beyond our realms. He may be decades ahead of us in his thinking. In the early 80s, when my talents were unfolding, only one person in the entire University—Professor Olabisi Afolayan—was able to discover it! Only one person. A year after my Ph.D., he asked the University to promote me to a Senior Lecturer. Of course, they refused. But he was the only one who saw my talent.
Let us see Adepoju as a genius, cultivate him, promote him, and see where we all land. Where he wants to convert an opportunity into money, we must back off.
For all those who are quick to criticize others, Adepoju is not my friend. The day I told Adeshina that Nimi Wariboko is not my friend; he was in shock. Moses Ochonu is not my friend. I worship talents where I see them. Even if Nimi or Moses abuse me, it is of no effect. I am manifesting my personality to locate extraordinary talents. Should they abuse me, they are displaying their own character flaws.
In the words of the Zulu, "I have spoken!"
Continue with your debates.
Stay well.
TF
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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