Platform 1: Lagos | UNILAG / University of Exeter |
UNILAG-Exeter Atlantica Symposium
Institute of African and Diaspora Studies
Seen from Lagos
African Re-groundings
Dates:
Tuesday 25 - Wednesday 26 June 2024
Venue:
Arthur Mbanefo Digital Research Centre (AMDRC)
University of Lagos (UNILAG)
Teams link:
https://rb.gy/at433c
Programme of Events
Tuesday 25th
- 8.30am–9.00amArrival and Registration
Housekeeping rules and remarksDr Abisoye Eleshin
(IADS, UNILAG) - 9.05am–9.15amWelcome address
Prof Muyiwa Falaiye
(Director, IADS, UNILAG)Prof William Gallois
(Asst. Director, Institute of Arabic & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) - 9.15am–9.25amOpening remarksProf Folasade Ogunsola
(Vice Chancellor, UNILAG) - 9.25am–9.30amKeynote Speaker CitationDr Abisoye Eleshin
(IADS, UNILAG) - 9.30am–10.30amKeynote address
With my Toes in the Soil: From a Plateau to a Spiritual AtlanticaProf Ruth Simbao
(National Research Foundation SARChI Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa, Rhodes University, RSA) - 10.30am–10.45amHave you ever seen the Sunrise on Brackish Waters? (Eko Ile)Lara Oshinowo
- 10.45am–11.10amTea Break
- 11.10am–12.40pm
Session 1: African Re-groundings
Bizuum Yadok – In Defense of Leoparditude: A Case to Update an Indigenous African Literary Theory (VIRTUAL)
Gbenga Fasiku – Embodied Philosophy: Foundation for Unbundling African Knowledge System
Bolanle Adetula – Subconscious trails of African Study: Re-imaging Contemporary African Studies.
Muhammad Finch – Unveiling an Ante-Onto-Epistemology: Shaikh Ibrāhīm Niasse and the Paradigmatic Shift in Afro-Islamic Thought (VIRTUAL)
Bolatito Kolawole – Indigenous Language Re-learning and the Question of Return
Chair: Prof Muyiwa Falaiye
(Director, IADS, UNILAG) - 12.40pm–1.00pmThe Egba Revolt: Recovering the Egba Women’s strategies, Stories and SongsLanaire Aderemi
- 1.00pm–1.55pmLunch
- 2.00pm–2.10pmEstefi Bournot – Specular Shores: Afro-Brazilian Entanglements from Abolition to the Present (VIRTUAL)
- 2.10pm–2.25pmScreening of “(Other)” Foundations
- 2.25pm–2.45pmConversation with Aline Motta
- 2.45pm–3.00pmShort break
- 3.00pm–4.30pm
Session 2: African Aesthetics and Material Cultures
Zainab Bello – Decolonization of Textile Narratives: A Visual Exploration of Hausa Folktales As Inspiration in Wax Print Designs
Umana Nnochiri – Alaptal Cloth: Visual metaphors on textiles (VIRTUAL)
Kehinde Adepegba – Interrogating Yoruba Art Through the Epistemology of Number in Yoruba Belief
Abiodun Abdul – Past Speculation for Future Inspiration (VIRTUAL)
Nathaniel Ogunyale – Beyond Utility: Understanding the Aesthetic and Cultural Dimensions of Yoruba Domestic Artifacts
Chair: Prof Peju Layiwola
(Art History, UNILAG) - 4.35pm–4.50pmThe Poverty of Revolutionary Leaders and the October 20, 2020 ExperienceAmenaghawon Idawu
- 4.50pm–5.00pmHousekeeping and RemarksProf Ayo Yusuff
(Head of Research, IADS, UNILAG) - 5.15pm–6.30pmDrinks Reception: Shine Your Eye ExhibitionDeji Akinpelu
Wednesday 26th
- 9.00am–9.05amHousekeeping rules and remarksDr Moses Yakubu
(IADS, UNILAG) - 9.05am–9.10amIntroduction of Lead SpeakerDr Moses Yakubu
(IADS, UNILAG) - 9.10am–10.00 amLead Speaker, Azu Nwagbogu (Director, African Artists Foundation/LagosPhoto) in conversationChair: Prof Tom Trevor
(Contemporary Art & Curation, University of Exeter) - 10.05am–10:20amNigeria’s Destiny – Poetry as Mirror of Our Cultural ValuesAyo Ayoola-Amale
- 10.20am–10.40amTea break
- 10.45am–12.15pm
Session 3A: Uncolonialism
Temitope Fagunwa – African Studies and Marxism: Any Intersection?
Olalekan O Hamed –When the “Gown” is not in “Town”: An Epistemological Discourse of Odun Ifa, Odun Egungun and Esu
Isaiah Olayode – Cultural Sensitivity: Redefining Methods of Data Collection in African Studies
Olabode Ojoniyi – From the Yoruba Omoluabi Essence Philosophy to Omoluabi Performance Aesthetics for the Nigerian Stage
Chair: Prof William Gallois
(Asst. Director, Institute of Arabic & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) - 10.45am–12.15pm
Session 3B: Ethnographies
Manta Yadok – Creating Folkloric Content Through Digital Ethnographical Approach: Example of My Beautiful Plateau Proverbs Facebook (VIRTUAL)
Abiodun T Adejumo – Ethnic Associations and Traditional Institutions in Democratic Nigeria: A Methodological Perspective
Amoo Abdussalam – A Morphosemantic Analysis of Death Related Yoruba personal names (VIRTUAL)
Bukola Amodu – Si Panpanla, Iyawo t'owo osi b'obe
Dr Isoken Onoyona-Ekeocha – Won te ge Asake l'eti lo: an ontological exploration of mutilated bodies, as seen from Lagos
Chair: Prof Patrick Oloko
(Literature & Cultural Studies, UNILAG) - 12.15pm–12.25pmShort break
- 12.25pm–12.40pmReimagining Roots: A Multisensory JourneyMykel Akomaye
- 12.45pm–1.40pmPANEL: Decolonizing Knowledge Production and Consumption in Post-Colonial Africa: Challenges and Pathways for a Global Decolonial AfricanityFela Kuti Study Group
- 1.40pm–2.35pmLunch
- 2.40pm–3.00pmEchoes of Resistance: Unveiling Anticolonial Soundscapes through Listening SessionsRui Vilela
- 3.00pm–4.15pm
Session 4: Atlantica
Darren Woodland – Afrofuturist Motifs of Metamorphosis and Transfiguration in Media Arts and Design (VIRTUAL)
Feyisayo Ademola-Adeoye – Re-grounding African Studies through African Languages: Making a case for Nigerian Pidgin
Abideen Amodu – Queerness in Lagos: Space, Place, and Community Attunements
Hellen Kilelo – Decoloniality in African Research: What Lessons can we draw from studying the Wahine Maori?
Chair: Dr Anthony Okeregbe
(Philosophy, UNILAG) - 4.15pm–4.40pmAfrican Indigenous Knowledge Production and the Arts: Reading from Wishes - A PlayDr Abisoye Eleshin
- 4.40pm–4.55 pmClosing RemarksProf Muyiwa Falaiye
(Director, IADS, UNILAG) - 4.55pm–5.00pmVote of ThanksProf Ayo Yusuff
(Head of Research, IADS, UNILAG) - 5.30pmDinner/Social gathering
The inaugural UNILAG-Exeter Atlantica symposium, Seen from Lagos is oriented towards the future in its exploration of solutions and routes through barriers which we find in the contemporary academy. It begins with the fear identified by Muyiwa Falaiye in his 2017 essay “Is African Studies Afraid of African Philosophy?” If even specialised branches of Area Studies devoted to the study of Africa are either ignorant of, or uneasy in dealing with, theories, concepts and methods drawn from African knowledge systems, what hope is there for the broader fields of the Humanities and the Social Sciences?
While the subsequent years since the publication of Falaiye’s article have vibrantly trailed the rise of a “decolonial turn,” particularly in institutions in the Global North, there is scant evidence that academic disciplines have shown any appetite to find new ways to think from or with modes of thought from the Global South. Equally noteworthy is the inadequacy of mutually conceived intentional conversations bridging knowledge spaces of the Global South. Though unacknowledged, this is partly a function of the difficulties entailed in both unlearning existing modes of perceiving the world, and navigating through various entanglements of subjectivities, alongside the hard graft needed in opening one’s mind to understanding through other languages, concepts and modes of being.
This Atlantica platform directly addresses such deficits through the provision of case studies which it hopes will inspire others to see the expected awakening which can arrive through approaches to knowledge creation which find inspiration in specific schools of thinking or praxis from the African continent. As such, it showcases philosophical studies which are able to engage prevalent pedagogies, explore and situate the value of indigenous epistemologies; not necessarily divorcing them from broader currents within their academic fields, though naming and enumerating their specific utility.
A second originating position lies in the study of art, both through forms of cultural practice and in the discipline of the history of art as it has been reconstrued by African – and especially Nigerian – writers such as Chika Okeke-Agulu and Rowland Ọlá Abíọ́dún. Beginning with this latter thinker, we take seriously his admonition that we are faced with the “urgent task” not simply of documenting global differences but ensuring “the survival and essential role of African artistic and aesthetic concepts in the study of art in Africa.” For this to happen, Abíọ́dún proposes a progressive abandonment of the conventional methods of the Western humanities, for their tendency is one of “concealing and even eliminating the social and religio-aesthetic foundation of the visual arts.”
Looking beyond Africa towards other exemplars, we are able to see the manner in which fundamental notions of time, history and aesthetics have been upended in quite general, as well as scholarly, fashions in locales such as Australia, where indigenous modes of artistic production have induced paradigmatic changes in thought. Similar tendencies can also be seen in specialised fields of study in Islamic art, in which the specificity of forms of Muslim spiritual enlightenment are prized above the emplacement of works of art within Western frames of knowledge.
Returning to Nigeria, it is arguable that one of the greatest conceptual gains which has emerged through the creation of indigenous forms of modernism by groups such as the Nsukka School has been their imagination of cultural production as a marriage of forms. Far from precluding deeper understandings of indigenous knowledge, fine art presents opportunities to disseminate such understandings in new fashions, to both local and international audiences. Relatedly, the degree to which an easy interchange across the study and making of art – evinced at UNILAG in the work of Peju Layiwola and others – reflects a positive belief in the ideal of conceptual and embodied forms of knowledge-making working in tandem.
Seen from Lagos is the first in a new series of Atlantica platforms and events, building towards a pan-Atlantic biennial of contemporary art and critical enquiry. Working with artists, writers and communities, Atlantica aims to re-examine the multiple histories and ‘historical presents’ of the Atlantic from diverse contemporary perspectives, challenging the supposedly ‘universal’ knowledge system that has inherently privileged a Eurocentric worldview.
Seen from Lagos is co-convened by Prof Muyiwa Falaiye, Institute of African and Diaspora Studies, and Prof Peju Layiwola, Art History, at University of Lagos, together with Prof William Gallois, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, and Prof Tom Trevor, Art History and Visual Culture, at University of Exeter. The programme has been coordinated with the support of Prof Ayodele Yusuff and Ms. Bolatito Kolawole. The Atlantica series is convened by Tom Trevor.