I started writing this post about 4 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. I am updating it once again, in May 2022. Currently, academic unions are on strike in both Nigeria and the UK. I have been updating and changing this post as the situation keeps changing in both countries. I have decided to publish this version as a preliminary overview. As developments develop, I may write additional posts as brief updates or observations on what is happening at that time. The picture is pretty grim for academia everywhere in the world. I have always been embedded in universities. I was born in one and apart from a year at the Nigerian Law School and my time in legal practice, I have always lived, worked or been at university. People may be able to tell from my work that I have a great passion for the future of universities and the role they may play in shaping new and just worlds. Or if they have any future at all.
Romance is not our way out of hell: Of #Bridgerton, representation & imagining a world beyond
I have been writing various versions of this post about romances and race for a while now. Probably since 2018. It started out as a sort-of review of The Power of One… there were also some additional thoughts that arose out of my review of Palm Trees in the Snow – which is, like the Power of One and Bridgerton, also a book-to-film adaptation. Then, the first season of Bridgerton was released at the end of 2019. I noticed that the things I wanted to say about the utilisations of cinematic portrayals of romance in both adaptations from book to film, were also being borne out in the adaptation of the Bridgerton novels… and even more so, as the adaptation adopted a counterfactual historical lens to depict a somewhat raceless picture of the past. However, so as not to conflate my gripes with adaptation with my gripes about race, representation and alternative histories, I have decided to focus in this particular post on the latter and consign the former to a different post. As always, watch this space for the other post… coming soon. Touch wood.
Amílcar Cabral: To Be Mountains, To Return to the Source of Power
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was a Pan-African revolutionary whose anticolonial resistance brought Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde to its knees. As a leader focused on liberation, he also defined and redefined the boundaries of and between, revolutionary action and revolutionary theorisation. He demonstrated the ways in which being a freedom fighter was inextricable from theorising liberation. For him revolution was also and always critically thinking, and revolution was also and always actually fighting. Revolution was “both… and.” Thus, as a theorist of decolonisation, Cabral stands out because, as Ferreira explains, “when he recognized that there was a breach to be closed, he stepped into it.” Cabral was willing to put his whole body, mind and soul on the line to achieve the outcome he believed was necessary for the liberation of his people… And so till the sea devours the earth, the shores of Cape Verde and the forests of Guinea-Bissau will echo with the strains of his name, “Viva Cabral!”
An Audio-Visual Collection of Foluke’s Talks
I am often asked to share some of my lectures and talks and I am never sure exactly which one will be helpful in the particular context. So I have decided to collect some of them together here. Of course a lot of them are on ‘decolonisation’ – an exceedingly broad topic indeed. But there are other topics here – such as African history and study skills. You can also check out my Youtube channel – which is slightly more up to date that this list. I will endeavour to keep this collection updated as well. As usual, the talks are collated thematically.
2021: A Year of Blogging, Twittering, Writing, Crying, Hoping… Living
As is my usual practice, I begin each year on the blog with a post that opens the year by reflecting on the activities and lessons from the past year. To that end, here’s my round up of my blogging activity of 2021, as well as news of some other academic writing and activity. My blogging frequency was down in 2021, because apart from the global pancake, I also decided to write a book. The book (still in progress at January 2022) aims to detail my thoughts on the ways in which decolonisation should and can inform teaching and researching law, focusing on the conceptual approaches that are possible, and I believe necessary, in this conversation. Watch this space for the book. Writing has gone better than expected in some ways, but there is still some more hard work to be done before publication dates and information can be announced.
To bell hooks and not being happy till we are all free
I am writing this at the end of a tiring academic term, staving off burnout from overwork and the trepidation that comes from existing through a brutal global pandemic. There may be mistakes in this post. Please correct me with love. But today I want to write out of the grief/love so many people are expressing at the crossing over of bell hooks. A radical Black feminist teacher, thinker and writer has joined the ancestors. And our grief/love cannot be contained. I say grief/love to note how deeply felt much of the scholarship of bell hooks is, and how she helps us to understand the ways in which we may bring all of ourselves into the academy. But also to note how her work extends beyond the academy. The idea that grief is love persevering relies so much of the pedagogy of compassion that bell hooks embodies.
Reintroducing Forever Africa Conference and Events
FACE is seeking new members to join its planning committee. The planning committee is tasked with, among other things:
- Sharing ideas in committee planning,
- Designing publicity material,
- Managing the website and social medial channels,
- Handling correspondence,
- Ambassadorial work – telling people about FACE, through private social media channels, and
- Building a nurturing community.
If you would like to join/know more, email us: foreverafrica@outlook.com
Losing Your Freedom of Speech
So what does it mean to lose your freedom of speech? Let me tell you a story of what it means to me. I know that having your freedom of speech curtailed is not having people – no matter how many – disagree with you. It is risking jail, torture, death and/or disappearance each time you speak. I have lived in a dictatorship. An actual one.
Law, Race and Decolonisation: A video and essay teaching resource
What Are Law Schools For? Teaching through the heart of an identity crisis
I wrote an article as part of a special issue that reflects on the state of the traditional law school and legal education. The full text is open access and can be accessed here or through your local library or other institutional channels. [Alternatively, contact me.] If you would like to read the entire special issue [if you are even tangentially involved in legal education I encourage you to do so], you can find it here. In my article, my purpose was to think through the role of law schools in local and global society, especially in teaching the world to our students.