Adeshina Afolayan
Biographic Data
| ID | 296676 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adeshina Afolayan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adeshina |
| FAMILY NAME | Afolayan |
| SIGNATURE | AFOLAYAN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ibadan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5035-4312 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
What is Yorùbá Metaphysics? Or, How Not to Write about Yorùbá Culture. A Review Essay on Toyin Falola’s Yorùbá Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality
In this essay, I will be interrogating yet another contribution to the unraveling of Yorùbá cultural and philosophical underpinning. Toyin Falola’s Yorùbá Metaphysics promised to add another deep layer of sociocultural and philosophical understanding of how the Yoruba perceive their reality. This is a fundamental endeavor, and one that could only be undertaken by a scholar that is well-grounded in such a cultural understanding. Toyin Falola is em…
Africa on the cusp of natality – from Afropessimism to African becoming A Review of Achille Mbembe and Felwine Sarr's edited volumes: To Write the Africa World (Polity Press, 2023a) and The Politics o…
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Global Health, Humanity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Philosophical and Sociological Challenges and Imperatives
This book interrogates global health, the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role science has played in mitigating the experiences of pandemics.
Global Health, Humanity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Philosophical and Sociological Challenges and Imperatives
On Postcolonial Knowledge: Ifá and Otto Neurath in Conversation
Knowledge and knowledge production play a significant role in the postcolonial project of de-traumatization and self-realization. However, such knowledge has often been couched within a Eurocentric epistemological framework. The postcolony is caught firmly within the orthodox which translates positivistic knowledge into the very definition of worldly progress—the idea of how a state attends to the welfare and well-being of its citizens through a …
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and Philosophy
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobea…
Yorùbá Philosophy and Contemporary Nigerian Realities
Beginning from Marx’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and reality, this Introduction to the special edition of the Yoruba Studies Review explores the inevitable but complex relationship that exists between philosophy and its place. Specifically, it is grounded on the urgency of interrogating Nigeria’s postcolonial realities in the light of Yorùbá philosophical insights that, among other things, enable a rethinking of postcolo…
The “Africanization” of an African Diaspora Household: Toyin Falola and the Idea of Diasporic Home-Making
This essay is an exercise in the interrogation of cultural globalization, and how the idea of transnationalism generates identity responses. The authors used the concept of home-making to examine how Toyin Falola deployed an aesthetic sensibility of African art as ideological dynamics for the personalization of his home situated in a suburb in Austin, Texas. The Africanization agenda that the Falola house operationalized points at the critical ro…
Fálétí’s Philosophical Sensibility
Let us begin with an unfortunate fact: Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí is one major writer that is hardly anthologized. The problem could not have been that he wrote in Yorùbá because Fágúnwà is far more anthologized than he is. Simon Gikandi’s edited Encyclopedia of African Literature (2003) has an entry and other multiple references to Fágúnwà. There is only one reference to Fálétí which is found in the index without any accompanying instance in the work. In I…
Is Modernity Single and Universal: Olaju and the Multilateral Modernity
This essay confronts two orthodoxies at the heart of the modernity debate. The first is that modernity, which supposedly originated from the West, is a single and universal historical development. The assumption therefore is that any genuine modernity elsewhere must proceed from aping the structuratlon of western modernity. The second orthodoxy challenges the first, and coalesces around the idea of multiple modernities, which do not share the hi…
Túndé Kèlání, Global Cinema and Philosophical Engagements
The articles in this special issue invite an understanding of Tunde Kelani as a global filmmaker, whose cinematic oeuvre engages with many places, audiences as well as media technologies. A major f
Túndé Kèlání and the Art of Being Yorùbá
Túndé Kèlání is a Yorùbá filmmaker whose auteurial vision deploys Yorùbá cultural dynamics towards the understanding of not only Yorùbá people’s beingness, but also of their place in the plural existence of the Nigerian state. This article takes seriously Túndé Kèlání’s philosophical sensibility, grounded in the Yorùbá worldview, as a means by which Kelani relates with the world. The article argues that, although Túndé Kèlání’s cultural philosoph…
Auteuring Nollywood: Rethinking the Movie Director and the Idea of Creativity in the Nigerian Film Industry
In search of a revolution: Raison d'état and the freedom argument
The concept of revolution conceptually objectifies the impotent socio‐economic and political desires and preferences of human beings against powerful and constricting social formations. It conjures the pictures of possibilities. It is not surprising that the violent happenings in the Middle East have been quickly dubbed “revolutions” by scholars and the Western media. This essay presents a consequentialist argument that deploys Arendt's freedom a…
The Arab Spring and politics in West Africa
In the first part of the essay, I outlined the theoretical underpinning of the modern state and how it generated a paradoxical relationship with the concept of revolution. This conceptual exercise is necessary because it yields huge political significance in a people's desire to master their own destiny, and also for the understanding of the democratic and development dynamics in West Africa. In spite of the intellectual and media popularity that…
The ethnocentric gaze: From ethnology to ethnophilosophy to “Africa”
In this essay I deploy Sartre's phenomenology of the gaze as the foil to demonstrate the cultural and philosophical movement from ethnology to ethnophilosophy that produces a specific conception of Africa. The violence of the Western gaze on Africa led several ethnological and anthropological excavations of Africa's cultural beingness, and the eventual creation of ethnophilosophical reason. Despite the obvious limitations of ethnophilosophy, I ar…
Abiola Irele and the Context of African Philosophy Discourse
The objective of this essay is to inscribe Abiola Irele into the African philosophical discourse through a philosophical scrutiny of his own negritude analysis. And the justification for this exercise goes beyond the attempt to recognize the philosophical import of Irele's literary oeuvres. It is also a significant attempt at challenging the parochial arrogance of (African) philosophy, which hinges the term "philosopher" around the narrow qualifi…
The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy
This handbook investigates the current state and future possibilities of African Philosophy, as a discipline and as a practice, vis-à-vis the challenge of African development and Africa's place in a g
The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy
African Philosophy at the African Cinema
The premise of this chapter is quite provocative: African philosophy, since its inauguration, has had little or no engagement with African cinema. Hence, there remains a huge intellectual and multidisciplinary gap that necessarily creates a conceptual absence in the collective attempt at making sense of the African predicament and pushing decolonization forward. In this chapter, Afolayan draws on the Deleuzian experience of being compelled to loo…
Auteuring Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on The Figurine
Beginning from an auteur standpoint, this book interrogates extant cinematic re-presentation of African and Nigerian postcolonial realities in Nollywood. It makes a case, using Kunle Afolayan?s The Figurine, for a critical space-clearing gesture around the notion of a neo-Nollywood, which transcends the formulaic cinematic re-presentation of African and Nigeriam realities to embrace a visionary and philosophic rearticualtion of the role of filmma…
Resignifying the Universal: Critical Commentary on the Postcolonial African Identity and Development
Resignifying the Universal: Critical Commentary on the Postcolonial African Identity and Development The dimension of the debate on the relation between the universal and the particular in African philosophy has been skewed in favour of the universalists who argued that the condition for the possibility of an African conception of philosophy cannot be achieved outside the "universal' idea of the philosophical enterprise. In this sense, the ethno-…
Issues and Challenges of Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries
This article is a theory‐based attempt to present the issues and challenges of emigration dynamics in developing countries. The topic is discussed within several basic assumptions: first, that emigration dynamics in developing countries have certain features that are different from those in developed countries; second, that countries in the regions covered by the study (sub‐Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, and South Asia) are re…
Immigration and Expulsion of Ecowas Aliens in Nigeria
The immigration of ECOWAS citizens into Nigeria gathered momentum after the protocol on the free movement of goods, capital and people was ratified in 1980. This period coincided with the era of oil-boom in the country. However, the influx was disrupted by the expulsion orders of January 1983 and April 1985. It is suggested here that even though the protocol is a laudable objective, the spatial mobility needs to be well monitored and the sovereig…
Marketing, to the rescue of Sasa
Issues and Challenges of Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries
This article is a theory‐based attempt to present the issues and challenges of emigration dynamics in developing countries. The topic is discussed within several basic assumptions: first, that emigration dynamics in developing countries have certain features that are different from those in developed countries; second, that countries in the regions covered by the study (sub‐Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, and South Asia) are re…
Residential mobility within metropolitan Lagos
Túndé Kèlání and the Art of Being Yorùbá
Túndé Kèlání is a Yorùbá filmmaker whose auteurial vision deploys Yorùbá cultural dynamics towards the understanding of not only Yorùbá people’s beingness, but also of their place in the plural existence of the Nigerian state. This article takes seriously Túndé Kèlání’s philosophical sensibility, grounded in the Yorùbá worldview, as a means by which Kelani relates with the world. The article argues that, although Túndé Kèlání’s cultural philosoph…
Is there a step-wise migration in Nigeria: A case study of the migrational histories of migrants in Lagos
Immigration and Expulsion of Ecowas Aliens in Nigeria
The immigration of ECOWAS citizens into Nigeria gathered momentum after the protocol on the free movement of goods, capital and people was ratified in 1980. This period coincided with the era of oil-boom in the country. However, the influx was disrupted by the expulsion orders of January 1983 and April 1985. It is suggested here that even though the protocol is a laudable objective, the spatial mobility needs to be well monitored and the sovereig…
The Sasa resettlement project
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and Philosophy
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobea…
Túndé Kèlání, Global Cinema and Philosophical Engagements
The articles in this special issue invite an understanding of Tunde Kelani as a global filmmaker, whose cinematic oeuvre engages with many places, audiences as well as media technologies. A major f
The ethnocentric gaze: From ethnology to ethnophilosophy to “Africa”
In this essay I deploy Sartre's phenomenology of the gaze as the foil to demonstrate the cultural and philosophical movement from ethnology to ethnophilosophy that produces a specific conception of Africa. The violence of the Western gaze on Africa led several ethnological and anthropological excavations of Africa's cultural beingness, and the eventual creation of ethnophilosophical reason. Despite the obvious limitations of ethnophilosophy, I ar…
Residential mobility within metropolitan Lagos
Is there a step-wise migration in Nigeria: A case study of the migrational histories of migrants in Lagos
Marketing, to the rescue of Sasa
The Sasa resettlement project
Immigration and Expulsion of Ecowas Aliens in Nigeria
The immigration of ECOWAS citizens into Nigeria gathered momentum after the protocol on the free movement of goods, capital and people was ratified in 1980. This period coincided with the era of oil-boom in the country. However, the influx was disrupted by the expulsion orders of January 1983 and April 1985. It is suggested here that even though the protocol is a laudable objective, the spatial mobility needs to be well monitored and the sovereig…
Issues and Challenges of Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries
This article is a theory‐based attempt to present the issues and challenges of emigration dynamics in developing countries. The topic is discussed within several basic assumptions: first, that emigration dynamics in developing countries have certain features that are different from those in developed countries; second, that countries in the regions covered by the study (sub‐Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, and South Asia) are re…
Resignifying the Universal: Critical Commentary on the Postcolonial African Identity and Development
Resignifying the Universal: Critical Commentary on the Postcolonial African Identity and Development The dimension of the debate on the relation between the universal and the particular in African philosophy has been skewed in favour of the universalists who argued that the condition for the possibility of an African conception of philosophy cannot be achieved outside the "universal' idea of the philosophical enterprise. In this sense, the ethno-…
Auteuring Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on The Figurine
Beginning from an auteur standpoint, this book interrogates extant cinematic re-presentation of African and Nigerian postcolonial realities in Nollywood. It makes a case, using Kunle Afolayan?s The Figurine, for a critical space-clearing gesture around the notion of a neo-Nollywood, which transcends the formulaic cinematic re-presentation of African and Nigeriam realities to embrace a visionary and philosophic rearticualtion of the role of filmma…
The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy
This handbook investigates the current state and future possibilities of African Philosophy, as a discipline and as a practice, vis-à-vis the challenge of African development and Africa's place in a g
The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy
African Philosophy at the African Cinema
The premise of this chapter is quite provocative: African philosophy, since its inauguration, has had little or no engagement with African cinema. Hence, there remains a huge intellectual and multidisciplinary gap that necessarily creates a conceptual absence in the collective attempt at making sense of the African predicament and pushing decolonization forward. In this chapter, Afolayan draws on the Deleuzian experience of being compelled to loo…
Auteuring Nollywood: Rethinking the Movie Director and the Idea of Creativity in the Nigerian Film Industry
In search of a revolution: Raison d'état and the freedom argument
The concept of revolution conceptually objectifies the impotent socio‐economic and political desires and preferences of human beings against powerful and constricting social formations. It conjures the pictures of possibilities. It is not surprising that the violent happenings in the Middle East have been quickly dubbed “revolutions” by scholars and the Western media. This essay presents a consequentialist argument that deploys Arendt's freedom a…
The Arab Spring and politics in West Africa
In the first part of the essay, I outlined the theoretical underpinning of the modern state and how it generated a paradoxical relationship with the concept of revolution. This conceptual exercise is necessary because it yields huge political significance in a people's desire to master their own destiny, and also for the understanding of the democratic and development dynamics in West Africa. In spite of the intellectual and media popularity that…
The ethnocentric gaze: From ethnology to ethnophilosophy to “Africa”
In this essay I deploy Sartre's phenomenology of the gaze as the foil to demonstrate the cultural and philosophical movement from ethnology to ethnophilosophy that produces a specific conception of Africa. The violence of the Western gaze on Africa led several ethnological and anthropological excavations of Africa's cultural beingness, and the eventual creation of ethnophilosophical reason. Despite the obvious limitations of ethnophilosophy, I ar…
Abiola Irele and the Context of African Philosophy Discourse
The objective of this essay is to inscribe Abiola Irele into the African philosophical discourse through a philosophical scrutiny of his own negritude analysis. And the justification for this exercise goes beyond the attempt to recognize the philosophical import of Irele's literary oeuvres. It is also a significant attempt at challenging the parochial arrogance of (African) philosophy, which hinges the term "philosopher" around the narrow qualifi…
Túndé Kèlání, Global Cinema and Philosophical Engagements
The articles in this special issue invite an understanding of Tunde Kelani as a global filmmaker, whose cinematic oeuvre engages with many places, audiences as well as media technologies. A major f
Túndé Kèlání and the Art of Being Yorùbá
Túndé Kèlání is a Yorùbá filmmaker whose auteurial vision deploys Yorùbá cultural dynamics towards the understanding of not only Yorùbá people’s beingness, but also of their place in the plural existence of the Nigerian state. This article takes seriously Túndé Kèlání’s philosophical sensibility, grounded in the Yorùbá worldview, as a means by which Kelani relates with the world. The article argues that, although Túndé Kèlání’s cultural philosoph…
Yorùbá Philosophy and Contemporary Nigerian Realities
Beginning from Marx’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and reality, this Introduction to the special edition of the Yoruba Studies Review explores the inevitable but complex relationship that exists between philosophy and its place. Specifically, it is grounded on the urgency of interrogating Nigeria’s postcolonial realities in the light of Yorùbá philosophical insights that, among other things, enable a rethinking of postcolo…
The “Africanization” of an African Diaspora Household: Toyin Falola and the Idea of Diasporic Home-Making
This essay is an exercise in the interrogation of cultural globalization, and how the idea of transnationalism generates identity responses. The authors used the concept of home-making to examine how Toyin Falola deployed an aesthetic sensibility of African art as ideological dynamics for the personalization of his home situated in a suburb in Austin, Texas. The Africanization agenda that the Falola house operationalized points at the critical ro…
Fálétí’s Philosophical Sensibility
Let us begin with an unfortunate fact: Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí is one major writer that is hardly anthologized. The problem could not have been that he wrote in Yorùbá because Fágúnwà is far more anthologized than he is. Simon Gikandi’s edited Encyclopedia of African Literature (2003) has an entry and other multiple references to Fágúnwà. There is only one reference to Fálétí which is found in the index without any accompanying instance in the work. In I…
Is Modernity Single and Universal: Olaju and the Multilateral Modernity
This essay confronts two orthodoxies at the heart of the modernity debate. The first is that modernity, which supposedly originated from the West, is a single and universal historical development. The assumption therefore is that any genuine modernity elsewhere must proceed from aping the structuratlon of western modernity. The second orthodoxy challenges the first, and coalesces around the idea of multiple modernities, which do not share the hi…
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and Philosophy
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobea…
Global Health, Humanity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Philosophical and Sociological Challenges and Imperatives
This book interrogates global health, the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role science has played in mitigating the experiences of pandemics.
Global Health, Humanity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Philosophical and Sociological Challenges and Imperatives
Sociology (20 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Aesthetics (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · African history and culture studies (7 works) · Art (7 works) · History (7 works) · African cultural and philosophical studies (6 works)