Akin Ògúndìran argues that Yoruba identity has deep roots in pluriversal worldviews, technological innovations, and cosmopolitan practices that are more than a thousand years old. In this talk, he will present the archaeological, sociological, and philosophical evidence for the ideas and practices that defined Yorùbá identity at different historical junctures, especially from the eleventh through seventeenth centuries.
Bio: Akin Ògúndìran is Chancellor’s Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, Anthropology & History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is also editor-in-chief of the African Archaeological Review. Ògúndìran ‘s research interests focus on the history and archaeology of the Yoruba world, Atlantic Africa, and the African Diaspora. Ògúndìran’s latest book, The Yoruba: A New History (Indiana University Press, 2020), is the winner of the 2022 Vinson Sutlive Book Prize and the 2022 Isaac Delano Book Prize in Yoruba Studies. He is a past fellow of the National Humanities Center and a Member of the Nigerian Academy of Letters.
Cosponsored by Center for African Studies at OIA, Department of African American and African Studies, and Yoruba Club21 of Columbus.
