Dr. Toyin Falola was presented with the prestigious Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award by Chancellor Charles Bantz on Saturday evening, October 31, 2009 at the Awards Dinner for the 1st Public Scholars in Africana Studies International Conference on Globalization held at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. The awards dinner and ceremony marked the end of a successful international conference on globalization organized by Chief Dr. Mrs. Bessie House Soremekun, the Conference Convener and Mistress of Ceremonies for the event.

About 575 people were in attendance at the conference over a three day period, including the awards dinner. The theme of the conference was “Rethinking Economic Development in the Context of Globalization: Entrepreneurship, the Knowledge Economy, and Sustainable Development. His Royal Majesty, Oba (King) Michael Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, Okukenu IV, Alake and Paramount Ruler of Egbaland was the keynote speaker for the awards dinner where he discussed “The Changing Role of Nigeria in the 21st Century Knowledge Economy.”

Dr. Toyin Falola presented the keynote speech at the luncheon on Friday, October 30, 2009 on the topic “Africana in the Margins: The Past and Future of Globalization.” The conference also featured some of the best and brightest scholars from universities and colleges representing four continents, i.e, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America, as well as students, entrepreneurs, administrators, and members of the public at large.

According to Chief Dr. Mrs. Soremekun, the Conference Convener, “we sent out a call for nominations to solicit recommendation letters for scholars for the Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award. We set the bar very high this year and were looking for a very special scholar who exemplified special types of characteristics. The creation of the Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award represents our best efforts to recognize an individual who can more accurately be described as the “quintessential “scholar’s scholar”, i.e., a person whose lifetime has been exemplified by the relentless search for knowledge in all of its’ various facets and whose total body of scholarship through the years has been considered by his/her peers to be of the highest level of excellence. We wanted to recognize a scholar who has developed a stellar global reputation because of the significant impacts his/her scholarship has had on the global academy and who has used his/her platform unselfishly to elevate others, particularly students, professional colleagues, and members of the public at large. We also wanted to recognize a scholar whose academic research has had transformative effects on the various global epistemological debates which have preoccupied scholars in his/her disciplinary area of focus through the years and whose work has provided an important platform for the development of an ongoing critical discourse with regard to the continuing relevancy of understanding and respecting African people, cultures, and ideologies, both in the past and contemporary time periods.”

According to House-Soremekun, “We received nomination letters and accompanying documentation for some extraordinarily talented scholars and academic superstars. A subcommittee was created to evaluate the dossiers and portfolios of each of the nominees and extensive discussions took place before the eventual winner was named. The extremely high level of productivity of some of the candidates necessitated the creation of an evaluation grid and categories that were simply off the ordinary scale. Dr. Falola was the only scholar who was nominated for the award by three different scholars. After extensive discussion and analysis, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis is proud to announce that Dr. Toyin Falola received the unanimous vote from the members of the subcommittee on awards and accordingly was presented with the prestigious 2009 Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday, October 31, 2009 by Chancellor Charles R. Bantz. We are delighted that a scholar with such impeccable credentials is the inaugural recipient of this award. It is particularly fitting that Dr. Falola receives this award at this time because this is the year that he has achieved his goal of publishing more than 100 books.”

The academic world has run out of superlatives to describe the magnificent body of scholarship produced through the years by the indefatigable, Dr. Toyin Falola. He is the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, the Nelson Mandela Professor of African Studies at Large, the Ibn Khaldun Distinguished Research Professor, a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria. He has also received an Honorary Doctorate from Monmouth University. He received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees with honors from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria. He has achieved many milestones in his career, including the fact that he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor by the age of 35. Since that time, the world has witnessed his meteoric rise to that of international professor, scholar, and global icon of African history and international political economy.

He is considered by many to be the leading African historian of his generation in the world today. He has been described as “the most prolific, productive, and accomplished historian of Africa not only of our era, but of all eras. A genre-bender of extraordinary talent, his contributions are wide-ranging and have covered all aspects that we label as “Africana Studies,” from history to literature, economics to political economy, religion to culture, and even the creative zones of poetry and the memoir.” He is one of the most respected and influential scholars of the 20th and 21st centuries, having published more than 100 books in some of the most prestigious publishing houses in the world and numerous journal articles in his field. In his scholarly work, Dr. Falola skillfully interrogates the interconnectedness between political, economic, social, religious, and cultural phenomenon and steps outside of the disciplinary boundaries of history to examine these issues at the highest level of analysis. He is the supreme global scholar who serves on the Editorial Boards of more than twenty journals. He is the Editor of African Economic History, published by the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Series Editor for the University of Rochester Press Studies in Africa and the Diaspora, the Senior Editor for the Greenwood Press Series on Culture and Customs of Africa, and the Series Editor of Classic Authors and Texts on Africa for the Africa World Press.

A highly respected global scholar who is always in constant demand to share his tremendous knowledge and expertise on a wide variety of topics relating to Africa and the African Diaspora, he routinely grants interviews to the press, writes opinion pieces, and serves as an international consultant with governmental and non-governmental organizations. He continues to disseminate his scholarship to the world community and created the USA/Africa Dialogue listserv in 2004. Today, there are more than 50,000 subscribers to this listserv and it serves as an important international forum for policy makers, journalists, intellectuals, scholars, students, and professionals to receive timely news and information about Africa and the diasporic communities of the world. Through the years, Dr. Falola has been invited to present keynote lectures on a consistent basis in almost all of the continents of the world.

He has taught at many universities on three continents including the University of Cambridge in England, Smith College in Massachusetts, York University in Canada, the Australian University in Canberra, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, and the Pontificia Universidade Catolica De Sao Paulo in Brazil. Because of his extraordinary skills in the classroom to educate and produce new generations of scholars, he has won teaching awards on three continents, including many garnered at the University of Texas at Austin where he was the recipient of the 2000 Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2001 Texas Excellence Teaching Award, the 2003 Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award, and the 2004 Academy of Distinguished Teacher’s Award. He is the only scholar who has had three festschriften written in his honor by his former students. These include The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola and The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, both edited by Dr. Adebayo Oyebade as well as Pre-Colonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, edited by Akin Ogundiran.

His award-winning memoir, A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt, is a literary masterpiece and was a finalist for the African Studies Association’s prestigious Herskovits Award. In this poignant ad spell-binding memoir, Falola skillfully interweaves numerous personal narratives about his early life growing up in Nigeria with a historical reconstruction of numerous events, cultural beliefs, political dynamics and trajectories to illuminate Nigeria’s progression from a colonial to a post-colonial state. With the use of historical specificity, narratives and meaning, metaphors, proverbs and songs coupled with a meticulous attention to detail and an erudite analysis of African history, culture, and politics in the past and contemporary time periods, he brilliantly challenges many western stereotypes about African life and culture. A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt is destined to become a classic in a way that is similar to Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart. Harry Garuba, a poet and literary critic at the University of Cape Town in South Africa wrote the following summary of Falola’s spell-binding and triumphant book of poetry, Scoundrels of Deferral, written with Vivek Bahl. “The poems collected in this volume are defined by a relentless topicality, arising from a passionate need to comment on the significant events and crises of our time. Adopting a consciously cultivated subaltern voice, the poems give us a versified vision of history from below. Alternately serious, sardonic and witty, the voices that speak through the poems articulate local concerns that carry along resonances of the global South.”

He has three chieftaincy titles and has received numerous awards through the years, including among others, the 2008 Quintessence Award, the 2007 Distinguished Africana Award from the African New World Program, the 2007Amistad Award for Academic Excellence and Historical Scholarship on Africa and the African Diaspora, the 2007 SIRAS Award for Outstanding Contribution to African Studies, the 2008 Distinguished Nigerian Award, the 2006 Isese Distinguished Fellow Award of Honor, the 2006 Udogu Award for Excellence in Teaching, prolific scholarship, and humanitarian service in Africa and its Diaspora, the 2004 President’s Distinguished Leadership and Scholarship Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award, and the Ibd Khaldun Distinguished Research Excellence Award.

“Africa has given birth to towering sons and daughters who rank among the best historians in the world. But there can be no doubt that given his prodigious output of scholarship informed by critical perspectives, with its interminable latitudes of vigorous theoretical and empirical saliency, Professor Falola is the most versatile and productive historian that Africa and perhaps the rest of the world have produced in recent memory.”

Contact Information:
Dr. Bessie House Soremekun
317-274-5027
besho...@iupui.edu