User:Demmy/Sandbox/Toyin Falola

Toyin Falola (born January 1, 1953 in Ibadan) is a Nigerian Historian and professor of African Studies. He is currently the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin. Falola earned his B.A. and Ph.D. (1981) in History at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Nigeria

Biography

Falola was born in Ibadan on January 1, 1953.

Academic works

His research interest is African History since the 19th Century; his geographic areas of study include Africa, Latin America and the United States; and his thematic fields are Atlantic History, Diaspora and Migration, Empire and Globalization, Intellectual History, International Relations, Religion and Culture. Recent courses he has taught include Introduction to Traditional Africa, an interdisciplinary course on the peoples and cultures of Africa, designed for students with limited background in African Studies as well as those who want to improve their understanding of this huge continent; United States and Africa, a course that examines the cultural, economic and political relations between Africa and the United States from the early origins of the slave trade to the present; and Epistemologies of African/Black Studies, a course that interrogates the rise and evolution of African/Black Studies, with a focus on (a) the historical development of scholarship and writing about Africa, race and the Diaspora; (b) pedagogy, curriculum and educational institutions within and outside Africa; and (c) the methodologies, theories and perspectives relevant to this field since the mid-20th Century.

Before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, Falola taught History at the University of Ife in the 1980s. During that time, he also held short-term teaching appointments at the University of Cambridge in England, York University in Canada, Smith College of Massachusetts in the United States, The Australian National University in Canberra, and the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, Nigeria. In addition, he has given numerous lectures on all continents.