BJ at 70

[Toyin Falola]

BJ AT 70 - PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

The renowned Harvard professor, literary critic, scholar and newspaper columnist, Professor Biodun Jeyifo, (popularly known as “BJ”), will turn 70 next Tuesday, the 5^th of January 2016. To mark it, a public lecture is being organized for the day, starting at 11 am, at the historic Arts Theatre of the University of Ibadan. The lecturer, Prof Dan Izevbaye, will be speaking on “The Critic’s Calling,” under the chairmanship of the legendary Prof J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, with Nobel laureate Prof  Wole Soyinka and cultural icon, Dr Lekan Are, as Special Guests of Honour.

We will be expecting you to turn up in droves to honour this illustrious son of Africa, our cherished colleague, friend and mentor.  

YEMI OGUNBIYI and FEMI OSOFISAN.

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

[Michael Vickers]

May you BJ have a truly wonderful day. 

Let the celebrations be lavish and long. 

All the very best,  

Baba Mike

[Michael Afolayan]

Great man of letters! Professor Biodun Jeifo was among those who made Great Ife an intellectually stimulating center of learning in the 1970s. His presence at the African Studies' Monday evening seminars, and the rapport as well as positive polemics he generated were memorable. Happy Birthday to a renaissance mind.

Michael O. Afolayan

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[kenneth harrow]

wow, a meeting, a conclave, of the old guard giants. and in honor of the wonderful bj! what a treat for those who could be there.
ken

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kenneth w. harrow 
professor of english
michigan state university
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[Rex Marinus]

Up BJ! Happy birthday to a great scholar and activist intellectual. However, I hope the man that appears on that day when this "conclave" (ala Ken Harrow) gathers, is actually BJ, and not Femi (Osofisan) or Kole (omotosho) since those three are known to be inter-changeable

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 11:33 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BJ at 70

 

wow, a meeting, a conclave, of the old guard giants. and in honor of the wonderful bj! what a treat for those who could be there.
ken

On 12/29/15 4:47 PM, Toyin Falola wrote:

BJ AT 70 - PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

The renowned Harvard professor, literary critic, scholar and newspaper columnist, Professor Biodun Jeyifo, (popularly known as “BJ”), will turn 70 next Tuesday, the 5^th of January 2016. To mark it, a public lecture is being organized for the day, starting at 11 am, at the historic Arts Theatre of the University of Ibadan. The lecturer, Prof Dan Izevbaye, will be speaking on “The Critic’s Calling,” under the chairmanship of the legendary Prof J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, with Nobel laureate Prof  Wole Soyinka and cultural icon, Dr Lekan Are, as Special Guests of Honour.

We will be expecting you to turn up in droves to honour this illustrious son of Africa, our cherished colleague, friend and mentor.  

YEMI OGUNBIYI and FEMI OSOFISAN.

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

The Yoruba Studies Review - University of Texas at Austin sites.utexas.edu Editors. YSR is co-edited by three scholars: Toyin Falola, Department of History, The University of Texas at Austin, Akin Ogundiran, Department of Africana Studies ...

[kenneth harrow]

bj deserves the great encomium that toyin gave to michael afolayan; but i am not the griot to do it.
bj is one of my generation; and i remember when first meeting him--actually it was hearing him,  shortly after he had arrived in the u.s.. when was that? in the 80s probably. way back when he had first arrived, and i think it was to be for his position in cornell.probably an ala conference.
what i remember was the hothead, this passionate marxist lecturing us on gramsci. he was using the gramscian discourse, i would say a bit ahead of the western academy for whom the terms of hegemony and organic intellectuals etc were just beginning to displace the earlier dominant positions of new criticism and then structuralism, which irele so much espoused.
bj was very exciting to hear; we wanted to run along the paths he was laying out, and along with others like gerima seemed to be giving marxism the place it merited after the downfall of the God That Failed.

i've never read or heard work by bj that i didn't love. and really, he showed how political engagement and theorizing were of a piece.
ken

[Ademola Dasylva]

"bj deserves the great encomium that toyin gave to michael afolayan; but i am not the griot to do it.‎" Kenneth Harrow

Ken, you probably meant that BJ deserves similar encomium, or I do not see any basis for this comparison, if at all. Every other thing you wrote on BJ was quite correct besides the fact he taught me at Ife late 1970s and early 1980s, I am familiar with many of his works.. A great teacher that he always is. Let me also add that whoever is familiar with Prof. Afolayan's  works and their profundity, his personality, and principle-drive passion for the course and the cause of humanity, will agree with the fact that he truly merits all the encomiums he got from Prof Falola‎, and even more. That is not to say that BJ is any fraction less in his own right, and therefore, deserves to be celebrated for as long as he lives by friends, colleagues, his former students, and admirers. 

 BJ and Afolayan are great scholars from Nigeria, each having distinct idiosyncratic inclinations driven by a combination of ideology and a set of beliefs.  Both have touched many lives albeit,  differently. ‎There is no basis for putting down one for the other. 

Ademola O. Dasylva

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: kenneth harrow Sent: Wednesday, 30 December 2015 01:39 To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Reply To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[kenneth harrow]

hi ademola
not sure why you think i put down the one in favor of the other. i agree both merit the praise.
ken

[Ofure Aito]

Happy birthday in advance, Uncle BJ. May you celebrate it in good health of mind and body.