Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space
Finding a new Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural
Delights of Cambridge
Discovering a New
Abiola Irele Essay : An
Invitation to Delights of Conceptual Density and Stylistic Creativity
I am writing this to announce to anybody who is
interested that I just discovered a new essay by the philosopher, literary and
cultural critic Abiola Irele.
Why should I be so happy to discover an essay by anyone? Is he a writer
whose work has long been out of circulation and badly needs organization
into an accessible format? Is it like a Vincent van Gogh work, one of those
lost Van Gogh sketches, perhaps one of those he gave up to a landlord in
payment for rent in the hungry years when he was building his art, a discovery
that could net me a fortune? Imagine the irony-Van Gogh died desperately
poor in 1890, of a self inflicted gunshot wound in a sanatorium. Yet, when an
airline a few years ago wanted to advertise how much they can save
companies that fly with them, they did not use any words. They simply
showed the picture of a Van Gogh painting as the value of what could be gained
by using their services. . Van Gogh has become so priced that many
museums cannot afford his work. Is the discovery of the Irele essay in
that magnitude of fortune?
Not in a monetary sense.
Irele is very much alive and well at Kwara Sate University in Nigeria [ This essay was written in 2013. The master transitioned in 2017].
The essay is in a modern book in a bookshop just down the road from the central
public library in Cambridge. I feel fulfilled because it means that I
have seen an Irele essay I did not know about before.
Why is an
Irele essay important to me and possibly to others?
It is so because Irele's writing is great in conceptual density and
stylistic creativity. Anything written by Irele is an event. His sentences and
paragraphs constitute research projects, so loaded are the lines with ideas, a
radiant dynamism of ideation and expression evoking glimpses of a
cognitive universe beyond, of which the sentence is a peak rising
above a vast world lying beneath.
Correlative
Sacred Spaces : Places of Worship and Places of Learning
Where did I see this essay?
I came across it as I was browsing through the Cambridge University Press
flagship bookshop on Trinity Street, Cambridge. I had settled down to work in
the Cambridge Central Library when I became restless and decided to
go for a walk. I have learnt that such restlessness is often productive. It
means my spirit wants to show me something. I put it that way because
that need to wander towards an unknown destination always
leads to inspiring discoveries.
Cambridge bookshops and Cambridge college chapels and churches are two
correlative forms of sacred space, the spatial density of both within the
city centre evoking most powerfully the alliance of spiritual seeking and
learning that is at the centre of the history of the university
city. The cloistered silence, the magnificent interiors of the chapels and
churches encase wonderful spaces where the mind can roam at will in
seeking that which is not named yet is the mother of the ten
thousand things, to evoke the philosopher Lao tzu in his Tao
te Ching.
These explicitly sacred structures resonate ( a word I learnt from Irele through the term "articulated resonance" describing the task of the literary critic in his "The Criticism of Modern African Literature") with the cathedral splendour of the bookshop, be it Heffers, with its magnificent cascades of shelving, located on Trinity Street, the same street housing the ancient façade of Trinity College, where Isaac Newton would have taken his solitary walks pondering celestial immensities, his mind revolving with the orbits of the celestial bodies, capturing those grand revolutions in numerical relationships and precise verbal descriptions now known as the theory of gravity. “ So I walk the same streets as the master of space”, would be my thought as I lay my hand on the ancient door to Trinity.
The intimate grandeur of the Magdalene College chapel, in its balance of grace and radiant dignity, evokes the contained splendour of Waterstones bookshop, on Sidney Street, itself echoing, by contrast, the now vanished spaces of the colossus of bookshops, Borders, which, in comparison with the more limited spatial aspirations of other bookshops, recalls the absolute command of space, the transformation of the surrounding landscape into the awesome depths of oceanic infinity, an impression created by the sheer bulk and awesome grace of that structure resting on the desert sands, as one observer describes the experience of confronting the wonder of the ancient world represented by the Pyramids of Giza, Borders, whose death was one of the great losses of the world, the end of a wonder of civilization.
The jewels of the Oxfam bookshop further down on Sidney Street, the density of texts in the Amnesty International bookshop on Mill Road, the treasures of G. David beside the watching gravestones congregating in the churchyard of St. Edward's Passage, the wonderful bargains of the Angel Bookshop and the eye opening, never ending discoveries of the market booksellers, the uncompromising wealth of the cognitive density and sheer expansiveness of the Cambridge University Press Bookshop, all these recall the wealth concealed in the resonant silence of St. Bene'ts church on Bene't street, small in space but manifesting a core of silence that evokes unspeakable treasures at the intersection of the source of being and the world of becoming.
These bibliophilic luminaries imply that I am like a person faced by an awesome landscape as described by Immanuel Kant on the Sublime in his Critique of Judgement, reduced to smallness by the sheer scope of variegated possibility, and yet vastened by the enlargement of self represented by the self reaching out to embrace this ever expanding universe of knowledge.
The Cambridge University Press Bookshop
It was in that spirit I stumbled on the Cambridge Companion to the
African Novel. edited by Abiola Irele. Ahhhh Irele...hmmmm, it
would be good to see what he has to say about the African novel,
particularly at this point in time. When was it published? 2009. Not too far
away, not very near either.
Looked through the list of contents. Saw Dan Izevbaye, one of those who defined
the landscape of writing about African literature some years ago. Saw Ato
Quayson, who has written some theoretically rich and sophisticated works
I have come across. Looked quickly through the others. I put the book down. Will come back for it later. Looked at other books.The Cambridge Companion to
Medieval English Mysticism. Very promising. Mysticism, the idea
that it is possible to experience God directly, face to face, to put it in one
way. Anything on African mysticism? None on display nor do I expect any in
publication here. A new field, which I intend to contribute to building [ I have begun with these essays : "Mystical Theory and Experience Across Cultures" Part 1 and Part 2]. Any other books on mysticism? Yes, I am told. The Cambridge Companion
to Christian Mysticism and another on mysticism and
negative theology-the idea that God is best described in terms of what he
is not rather than of what he is, to summarize one
definition.
Saw the names of the immortal greats in literature, theology etc- Cambridge
Companion to Kafka,Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth etc.
"When are you going to publish a companion to my work?",
I feel like asking the booksellers with a very serious face, the way that
the other day, grasping the Dictionary of Fellows of the Society of
Engineers at the Oxfam bookshop, I challenged the bookseller "Why
is my name not here?!" The man laughed. Or the time in the bookshop in
Finchely, London, when, with a dead earnest face, I queried the bookseller, "When are you going to carry copies of my book?!" The poor man
thought I was serious until I explained the joke.
Went upstairs. How, in the name of God, am I going to cart all these books to my
library? Imagine the empowering wonder of being surrounded by all these
books, from mathematics, to physics, to philosophy of science, to ecology to
architecture, to philosophy and more. Imagine if they were all mine,
safely enthroned in my own space, to be read at will. Imagine what I
would become!
I had to ask the bookseller on the top floor, "Does your publishing house
give book advances?" Perhaps I could join this select club of authors and
be fortunate enough to make some money in the process. "No. The
books are not expected to sell in large numbers, so only a small print run is
anticipated for each book, relatively few copies of less than a thousand
are expected to be printed, and will be bought by institutional
collections. In such a tight market, not much money is being made, even by the
Press. The best the Press can do is give royalties. People don't publish with
Cambridge to make money. Its is the brand. The prestige. Keeping that in mind,
the brand is so carefully monitored each book goes through a panel of assessors
to determine if it is a book we should publish in terms of its contribution
to knowledge".
True. It truly is grand. I see the books are so rich, so powerful that
even with their often daunting prices it is clear you have to read
them if that is your formal field of study or interest. It is beyond
compromise. Anything else would be self cheating. Cambridge UP has such a
solid grounding in hard core knowledge in various fields that their books
are unavoidable..
There is this absolutely mouthwatering series the Cambridge History of Science.
Fantastically rich in scope and perspectives, described as the "first
comprehensive history of science in 30 years...The contributors, world
leaders in their respective specialties, engage with current historiographical
and methodological controversies and strike out on positions of their
own", yet the price of even one volume of the eight volume
work, the cheapest being £100, does not seem to call out for
immediate purchase as you are drawn to it.
"Exactly. That kind of book would have been worked on by many contributors
over a long period of time", the bookseller responds. "How is
such a work to be priced? Who is expected to read it? Who will buy it? It
will be read, it will be bought but its direction is specialized
and those institutions that must have it as part of their
foundations of knowledge have budgets for such
acquisitions", is my summary of the bookseller's further
justification of the Press' strategy. "We produce works that constitute
the very foundations of knowledge in various disciplines, the inescapable
summative and critical engagement with both the cutting edge and the
state of the field within both historical and contemporary
lenses in each field, the bedrock on which other works stand", is
how I sum up the vision of his presentation of the vision of Press, and
he concurs.
Books, Cookers, Suits and Shoes
Aga Range Cookers were on display a short distance from the
library. Constructed with the power of trucks and the
elegance of a modern jet. Price- £10,000. Hire purchase-£250 down payment
and about £150 or slightly above monthly payment. According to the
salesman, they last for generations. An Aga kitchen is associated with a
certain kind of person and a certain kind of home. For some people,
it is a way of signalling they they have arrived, is his
summation of the meaning of the brand.
Loakes Shoes,with the sleek lines of a jaguar and
the feel of tender power, in the Charles Clinkard shop near
the library are priced at almost £200 and above. I see people
wearing such shoes. Some of the nearby Charles Tyrwhitt's suits, solid, delicately
cut, are labelled £229 and £349.
On the online Style Forum, discussing
men's shoes, someone comments: "I am thinking to go for C&J Hallam in
black. This is my first pair of Oxford. Do you think the front of the shoe(toe
cap?) look[s] a bit weird? Is the price of USD333 reasonable?"
Moving from the Web back to Cambridge, away from the city centre past King's College, you get to Ede and Ravenscroft opposite Corpus Christi College on Trumpington Street. Quietly powerful
with the potent elegance of the suits on display. You are confronted with a world whose
distinctiveness is evident, distinct even from the costly elegance of the shops
on the high end Grand Arcade where you find Anga, Loakes and Charles
Tyrwhitt. At this point, you have entered a lifestyle enculturation zone, where
you distinguish between the suit for weekend wear and the suit for formal wear.
For the weekend, you are spending
about £400 and above for a suit and £295 for an umbrella walking
stick . For a suit for formal wear, you spend
£450 to £550.
Beyond the
pedigreed world of Ede and Ravenscroft is the uncompromising focus on
elegance at the highest pitch at Anthony on Trinity
Street, where all other Cambridge clothes shops are dwarfed in terms of price
and perhaps in sheer refinement of the art of men's clothing. The ties,
the shirts, the jackets, are obvious expressions of a pinnacle in the glory of
clothing, that transformation of necessity into art central to much of
civilization.
"You could buy a suit here for a £1,000 but it would be a very good suit" the man in charge inside Anthony dressed in the sharp but sober accents evident in the display on the shop window declares. The shop's offerings are largely Italian and are clearly different from anything else in shop window displays in Cambridge, even though it stocks the same standard line of suits, jackets and ties as the others but with a touch that stands out with a subtle and yet definite uniqueness. "Do you think Italians demonstrate more style than the English?" I ask him? "Of course. The Italians do not compromise. They are in a different class entirely" is my understanding of his response. “If someone wished to shop at the best place in Italy for the most elegant attire, without the trouble of flying there – Anthony’s is the perfect service" is the testimonial of Professor A.Gibson, Cambridge, on their website.
I never
fail to notice and stop to gape with veneration at the window display.
"This is how a human being should be clothed", is the impression it
gives me. Clothed in fabrics and a flawlessly stylish cut that
reflects the serene perfection of the art of nature as demonstrated in
the human frame. Beside the gloriously sharp shirt and eloquent delicacy of the
ribbon that is the tie beside it, is the statement of the monetary value of
this arrival at true recognition of how to honor the human being through sartorial culture:
"Canali
suit: £995; Canali silk jacket: £795; Working watch cufflinks- small watches in
the form of cufflinks: £95".
"Anthony is a shop that brings the essence of Bond Street and quality of
Savile Row to Cambridge" states their website. You need to experience the
concentrated sophistication of the commercial and lifestyle nexus that
is Bond Street in London to grasp the point
being made, added to the evocation of Savile Row as the heart of the most
exclusive menswear industry in England.
The Savile Row reference leads you to another world entirely, where "your needs, hopes and desires" for your suit are crafted into the suit, handmade especially for you alone, with suits in the "golden mile of tailoring" as Wikipedia puts it, starting at around £3,000.
One totally bespoke or total tailor made suit outfit in Cambridge is Tailor and Cutter in the exotic sinuous weave of All Saints Passage, the shop space evoking nothing more than the workmanlike innards of a workshop, an eschewing of elegance understood by the cognoscenti as a focus on process leading to an exquisite product, a product that is so unique no example needs to represent it in the name of a window display. An outfit so confident of their clientele and image, they don't bother to use email. The customer base finds you even outside of such modern innovations, or so I had thought, until I saw their mail address on their website.
On inquiry, I am told a jacket would cost about £800, a two piece suit £1,200. The Savoy Taylors Guild/Moss Bros opposite the imposing beauty of St. John's college chapel tower on St. John's Street describes this process in its formula "Go Bespoke from £295" : "Customise your cut ( "alter the cloth to flatter your shape"). Choose your cloth (" Choose the fabric that feels right for you"). Create your suit" ( "Add character through details that are exclusively yours"), with the powerful sartorial forms on display cut down in price in a near mid-year sale : Suit- £499 now £299; £399.
Between Limited Means and Ever Expanding Ends
So, what are we saying?
One view of economics is that it is the study of the management of scarce
resources, implying that since supply and demand can never be equal
and disposable income is never equal to demand, opportunity
cost, whether in terms of tangibles or intangibles must be factored
into all transactions. For every choice made is a price not paid?
Is something not always given up to get another thing? Even a
hermit who owns nothing except his life which he might not even own since
he can't prevent it from ending its terrestrial existence, must pay
a price to own nothing. Some Indian hermits go naked because they
worship the One Who Owns Everything and therefore Possesses Nothing.
"These
books are not such that they are expected to be bought by individuals. It is
not expected that a person would just walk in and buy one off the shelf.
That would be so for the cheaper works like the
"Companion" series [ which, even then, cost more than the
average book] , but the broad range of books are expected to go to
institutional libraries which have budgets for such acquisitions" sums up
the Cambridge University Press bookseller.
Of course, to a person like myself, such strictures do not apply. As far as I
am concerned, budget or no budget, where book acquisition is concerned, I
am equivalent to an institution. I will do whatever it takes to get them. In
all circumstances, my library must grow. All materiel considerations, all comforts,
may be postponed till tomorrow but a book missed represents opportunities
lost forever. Even if the book is bought another day, the
particular intersection of opportunity and capacity for illumination in
the fertile soil represented by the state of the mind at the point in
time when the book is first encountered cannot be regained.
What scope of finances is required to truly fulfill such a philosophy? What are
the chances of acquiring such finances from within a radically
bibliophilic existence? Are these questions not an analogue to the
relationship between finitude and infinity? How did Dante put it at the climax
of Paradiso? "I tried to understand how that contradiction
could be, how the human image could fit into the Other, but it was impossible,
like a geometer trying to square a circle, but a sudden light smote my
understanding so that I knew, but knowing without thought" is one way of
paraphrasing the wondering description of the Florentine
master.
Infinity
of Learning and Scope of Being
"I
hold the buying of more books than one can read as nothing less
than the soul's reaching towards infinity, which is the only
thing that raises us above the beasts" -Anonymous- Waterstones Cambridge
bookshop inscription.
J. Ki-Zerbo in the wonderful essay on "African Prehistoric Art"
in the fantastic UNESCO General History of Africa Vol.I : Methodology and African
Prehistory argues
that the creation of art is the one cultural form that marks humanity as
distinct from animals. It has been proven that animals make tools. Perhaps
Ki-Zerbo is not accurate even with the focus on art. Bees are described as
constructing intricate movements to signal to other bees the distance to
locations of food. Is that not dance, a form of art? Philosophies of nature
which do not limit sophisticated cognition to human beings are more diffident,
more qualified about what constitutes the distinctively human or what
represents the most valued qualities within the tapestry of nature.
To such schools of thought it is not true that nature is meaningful primarily because it comes within human comprehension, as Julian Thomas on "Archeologies of Place and Landscape" in Ian Hodder's edited Archeological Theory Today describes a point made by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Others were here before you and have developed means of awareness and of being very different from yours and from whom you can learn, if you adapt yourself to them, such views would assert. "The Gods of the world are trees and animals, long, long before they entrust their sacrosanct magnificence to a human figure" declares Susanne Wenger in Hotter and Brockmann's Adunni: A Portrait of Susanne Wenger. Within such contexts, considerations of cultural forms and their relative value take on a different hue than in a human focused universe.
What would such views hold about the unfulfillable yearning to learn
represented by the infinity of books as raising the human being above animals?
I would not know but it might be held that that tree might have much to teach
you that might not be available from any book. Yes, you can cut the tree down
in a short time. It is defenceless to you just as you are defenceless to the
vagaries of accident and the relentless entropy of time, an outcome
beyond your control. Perhaps the tree and yourself exist within different but
convergent universes of value, a symphony in which various harmonies conjoin to
create a rhythm so blinding in its intensity we cannot see its pattern
but only its units, so thinking ourselves alone in awareness of the
experience of being.
Having been both made small, on account of seeing how little I am in the forest
of learning, and vastened since I aspire to know as much of that forest
as possible, realizing the capacity for this achievement
within me, I return to the library to tell you of my
adventure this morning.
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
You love Cambridge. Does Cambridge love you? What is the source of its glitter? How sacred is its space?
On a different note let me modify a previous statement I made on pedophilia frequency. The percentage of
pedophile priests may be nonexistent in some areas, and small, medium, high and very high in others depending on
location, peer pressure, parental and parish gullibility, papal inaction etc.
We have to study the reports coming in from Peru, Chile, Ireland etc. -and view the largely under researched African case, for example, to get the real picture.
...............
Cambridge University and slave trade links
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KLfSQY6_ZcAGsA7Tdx.9w4;_ylu=X3oDMTByZnU4cmNpBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwM5BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--/RV=2/RE=1559714712/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2feducation%2f2019%2f04%2f29%2fcambridge-university-launches-inquiry-slave-trade-links-historic%2f/RK=2/RS=XHg95T4XkZRLNAaffNmI6HQJUEI-
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2019 11:56:00 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
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Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space
Finding a new Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural
Delights of Cambridge
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Discovering a New Abiola Irele Essay : An Invitation to Delights of Conceptual Density and Stylistic Creativity
I am writing this to announce to anybody who is interested that I just discovered a new essay by the philosopher, literary and cultural critic Abiola Irele.
Not in a monetary sense.
Irele is very much alive and well at Kwara Sate University in Nigeria [ This essay was written in 2013. The master transitioned in 2017]. The essay is in a modern book in a bookshop just down the road from the central public library in Cambridge. I feel fulfilled because it means that I have seen an Irele essay I did not know about before.
Why is an Irele essay important to me and possibly to others?
It is so because Irele's writing is great in conceptual density and stylistic creativity. Anything written by Irele is an event. His sentences and paragraphs constitute research projects, so loaded are the lines with ideas, a radiant dynamism of ideation and expression evoking glimpses of a cognitive universe beyond, of which the sentence is a peak rising above a vast world lying beneath.
Correlative Sacred Spaces : Places of Worship and Places of Learning
Where did I see this essay?
I came across it as I was browsing through the Cambridge University Press flagship bookshop on Trinity Street, Cambridge. I had settled down to work in the Cambridge Central Library when I became restless and decided to go for a walk. I have learnt that such restlessness is often productive. It means my spirit wants to show me something. I put it that way because that need to wander towards an unknown destination always leads to inspiring discoveries.
Cambridge bookshops and Cambridge college chapels and churches are two correlative forms of sacred space, the spatial density of both within the city centre evoking most powerfully the alliance of spiritual seeking and learning that is at the centre of the history of the university city. The cloistered silence, the magnificent interiors of the chapels and churches encase wonderful spaces where the mind can roam at will in seeking that which is not named yet is the mother of the ten thousand things, to evoke the philosopher Lao tzu in his Tao te Ching.
These explicitly sacred structures resonate ( a word I learnt from Irele through the term "articulated resonance" describing the task of the literary critic in his "The Criticism of Modern African Literature") with the cathedral splendour of the bookshop, be it Heffers, with its magnificent cascades of shelving, located on Trinity Street, the same street housing the ancient façade of Trinity College, where Isaac Newton would have taken his solitary walks pondering celestial immensities, his mind revolving with the orbits of the celestial bodies, capturing those grand revolutions in numerical relationships and precise verbal descriptions now known as the theory of gravity. “ So I walk the same streets as the master of space”, would be my thought as I lay my hand on the ancient door to Trinity.
The jewels of the Oxfam bookshop further down on Sidney Street, the density of texts in the Amnesty International bookshop on Mill Road, the treasures of G. David beside the watching gravestones congregating in the churchyard of St. Edward's Passage, the wonderful bargains of the Angel Bookshop and the eye opening, never ending discoveries of the market booksellers, the uncompromising wealth of the cognitive density and sheer expansiveness of the Cambridge University Press Bookshop, all these recall the wealth concealed in the resonant silence of St. Bene'ts church on Bene't street, small in space but manifesting a core of silence that evokes unspeakable treasures at the intersection of the source of being and the world of becoming.
These bibliophilic luminaries imply that I am like a person faced by an awesome landscape as described by Immanuel Kant on the Sublime in his Critique of Judgement, reduced to smallness by the sheer scope of variegated possibility, and yet vastened by the enlargement of self represented by the self reaching out to embrace this ever expanding universe of knowledge.
The Cambridge University Press Bookshop
Looked through the list of contents. Saw Dan Izevbaye, one of those who defined the landscape of writing about African literature some years ago. Saw Ato Quayson, who has written some theoretically rich and sophisticated works I have come across. Looked quickly through the others. I put the book down. Will come back for it later. Looked at other books.The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCambridge-Companion-Companions-Literature-ebook%2Fdp%2FB009UTEYSQ&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=UCz0YEtgYdaMtDWYMj%2BltD3SXGwc%2FZMjQXsN9VYXuUY%3D&reserved=0>. Very promising. Mysticism, the idea that it is possible to experience God directly, face to face, to put it in one way. Anything on African mysticism? None on display nor do I expect any in publication here. A new field, which I intend to contribute to building [ I have begun with these essays : "Mystical Theory and Experience Across Cultures" Part 1<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnotes%2Foluwatoyin-vincent-adepoju%2Fmystical-theory-and-experience-across-cultures-part-1%2F10152209719269103%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=6CJDgx6Pc8ckysSLLTZ0UCLcN8j82K%2B7UbXd4tC%2B6BA%3D&reserved=0> and Part 2<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnotes%2Foluwatoyin-vincent-adepoju%2Fmystical-theory-and-experience-across-cultures-part-2%2F10152944419179103%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=bE6eLTB%2B6aZwxbSXD7SlyCkUN%2FQDzJ%2FexjnWC8SNhaY%3D&reserved=0>]. Any other books on mysticism? Yes, I am told. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCambridge-Companion-Christian-Mysticism-Companions%2Fdp%2F0521682274&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=SPB%2B4VJLM6tDjnk3duTnavv1DCBMEaI41NQ4sGDxudo%3D&reserved=0> and another on mysticism and negative theology-the idea that God is best described in terms of what he is not rather than of what he is, to summarize one definition.
Saw the names of the immortal greats in literature, theology etc- Cambridge Companion to Kafka,Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth etc. "When are you going to publish a companion to my work?", I feel like asking the booksellers with a very serious face, the way that the other day, grasping the Dictionary of Fellows of the Society of Engineers at the Oxfam bookshop, I challenged the bookseller "Why is my name not here?!" The man laughed. Or the time in the bookshop in Finchely, London, when, with a dead earnest face, I queried the bookseller, "When are you going to carry copies of my book?!" The poor man thought I was serious until I explained the joke.
Went upstairs. How, in the name of God, am I going to cart all these books to my library? Imagine the empowering wonder of being surrounded by all these books, from mathematics, to physics, to philosophy of science, to ecology to architecture, to philosophy and more. Imagine if they were all mine, safely enthroned in my own space, to be read at will. Imagine what I would become!
I had to ask the bookseller on the top floor, "Does your publishing house give book advances?" Perhaps I could join this select club of authors and be fortunate enough to make some money in the process. "No. The books are not expected to sell in large numbers, so only a small print run is anticipated for each book, relatively few copies of less than a thousand are expected to be printed, and will be bought by institutional collections. In such a tight market, not much money is being made, even by the Press. The best the Press can do is give royalties. People don't publish with Cambridge to make money. Its is the brand. The prestige. Keeping that in mind, the brand is so carefully monitored each book goes through a panel of assessors to determine if it is a book we should publish in terms of its contribution to knowledge".
True. It truly is grand. I see the books are so rich, so powerful that even with their often daunting prices it is clear you have to read them if that is your formal field of study or interest. It is beyond compromise. Anything else would be self cheating. Cambridge UP has such a solid grounding in hard core knowledge in various fields that their books are unavoidable..
"Exactly. That kind of book would have been worked on by many contributors over a long period of time", the bookseller responds. "How is such a work to be priced? Who is expected to read it? Who will buy it? It will be read, it will be bought but its direction is specialized and those institutions that must have it as part of their foundations of knowledge have budgets for such acquisitions", is my summary of the bookseller's further justification of the Press' strategy. "We produce works that constitute the very foundations of knowledge in various disciplines, the inescapable summative and critical engagement with both the cutting edge and the state of the field within both historical and contemporary lenses in each field, the bedrock on which other works stand", is how I sum up the vision of his presentation of the vision of Press, and he concurs.
Books, Cookers, Suits and Shoes
Loakes Shoes,<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.loake.co.uk%2Floake-1880.html&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=321iZs%2FS8bJOP1A7%2Fb%2BPxjnGurVHTA9I2hkeijF6xow%3D&reserved=0>with the sleek lines of a jaguar and the feel of tender power, in the Charles Clinkard <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charlesclinkard.co.uk%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=TCRQKrECHmA0BX9Y3TbYKaypmcSYeBwq2m6NOHOh%2F9M%3D&reserved=0> shop near the library are priced at almost £200 and above. I see people wearing such shoes. Some of the nearby Charles Tyrwhit<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ctshirts.co.uk%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fq%3Dgbpdefault%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=OOcIqV0cnjzqQER2I6%2FUAo5fKYxdMvbS53yULRieJ1M%3D&reserved=0>t's suits,<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ctshirts.co.uk%2Fmen%2527s-suits%2FGrey-mohair-tailored-fit-Black-Label-suit-%3Fq%3Dgbpdefault%257C%257CBSA18GRY%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%257C%26sortBy%3DPrice%2520%2528Descending%2529&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=Ic2hgwv22M61UPN5Ruc6Oh0eAx9wqa%2BkhNyX%2Ftaje7E%3D&reserved=0> solid, delicately cut, are labelled £229 and £349.
On the online Style Forum<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.styleforum.net%2Ft%2F194586%2Fcheaney-vs-crockett-jones%2F15&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=BfHLy7KepXqB4qHBxdZkzN86fGnArK6gJEqbC1WuszA%3D&reserved=0>, discussing men's shoes, someone comments: "I am thinking to go for C&J Hallam in black. This is my first pair of Oxford. Do you think the front of the shoe(toe cap?) look[s] a bit weird? Is the price of USD333 reasonable?"
Moving from the Web back to Cambridge, away from the city centre past King's College, you get to Ede and Ravenscroft<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edeandravenscroft.co.uk%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=qFiG5yCu9pMcOLGSOYkD4NEBirikSAyxkMyp%2FSVmRjE%3D&reserved=0> opposite Corpus Christi College on Trumpington Street. Quietly powerful with the potent elegance of the suits on display. You are confronted with a world whose distinctiveness is evident, distinct even from the costly elegance of the shops on the high end Grand Arcade where you find Anga, Loakes and Charles Tyrwhitt. At this point, you have entered a lifestyle enculturation zone, where you distinguish between the suit for weekend wear and the suit for formal wear. For the weekend<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.edeandravenscroft.co.uk%2Fcollections%2Fweekend&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=JnukSKHcZrjvkFouyRKDeYOscBrrYGAJMIr7nMHhuVc%3D&reserved=0>, you are spending about £400 and above for a suit and £295 for an umbrella walking stick . For a suit for formal wear<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.edeandravenscroft.co.uk%2Fcollections%2Fformal%3Fpage%3D1&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=WNdmK7Y0FOkAJ7uwN4Z5pEQtHyhYtlpNEAVPMCbNXT8%3D&reserved=0>, you spend £450 to £550.
Beyond the pedigreed world of Ede and Ravenscroft is the uncompromising focus on elegance at the highest pitch at Anthony<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fanthonymenswear.co.uk%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=qxy1C1LaG4pNA0znqGd8n50tLVZ3SKOsnU9WfGSDh8I%3D&reserved=0> on Trinity Street, where all other Cambridge clothes shops are dwarfed in terms of price and perhaps in sheer refinement of the art of men's clothing. The ties, the shirts, the jackets, are obvious expressions of a pinnacle in the glory of clothing, that transformation of necessity into art central to much of civilization.
"You could buy a suit here for a £1,000 but it would be a very good suit" the man in charge inside Anthony dressed in the sharp but sober accents evident in the display on the shop window declares. The shop's offerings are largely Italian and are clearly different from anything else in shop window displays in Cambridge, even though it stocks the same standard line of suits, jackets and ties as the others but with a touch that stands out with a subtle and yet definite uniqueness. "Do you think Italians demonstrate more style than the English?" I ask him? "Of course. The Italians do not compromise. They are in a different class entirely" is my understanding of his response. “If someone wished to shop at the best place in Italy for the most elegant attire, without the trouble of flying there – Anthony’s is the perfect service" is the testimonial of Professor A.Gibson, Cambridge, on their website.
I never fail to notice and stop to gape with veneration at the window display. "This is how a human being should be clothed", is the impression it gives me. Clothed in fabrics and a flawlessly stylish cut that reflects the serene perfection of the art of nature as demonstrated in the human frame. Beside the gloriously sharp shirt and eloquent delicacy of the ribbon that is the tie beside it, is the statement of the monetary value of this arrival at true recognition of how to honor the human being through sartorial culture:
"Canali suit: £995; Canali silk jacket: £795; Working watch cufflinks- small watches in the form of cufflinks: £95".
The Savile Row reference leads you to another world entirely, where "your needs, hopes and desires" for your suit are crafted into the suit, handmade especially for you alone, with suits in the "golden mile of tailoring" as Wikipedia<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSavile_Row&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=o7WFs%2F6kfmdqsEFTiJB9H3cKGEgmK7aLffzMkmy7opk%3D&reserved=0> puts it, starting at around £3,000<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq-magazine.co.uk%2Fstyle%2Farticles%2F2011-07%2F19%2Fsavile-row-bespoke-suits-best-tailors-london%2Fviewall&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=mF1Aly09Xi6bSxmFs0URSYXhVQ%2Bu7%2FpjO3h5YFW2084%3D&reserved=0>.
One totally bespoke or total tailor made suit outfit in Cambridge is Tailor and Cutter<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tailorandcutter.co.uk%2F&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=%2Fi%2BvDOd%2F9aCrd4ChF1ty3qlMFbwxHJqEltGdethp14o%3D&reserved=0> in the exotic sinuous weave of All Saints Passage, the shop space evoking nothing more than the workmanlike innards of a workshop, an eschewing of elegance understood by the cognoscenti as a focus on process leading to an exquisite product, a product that is so unique no example needs to represent it in the name of a window display. An outfit so confident of their clientele and image, they don't bother to use email. The customer base finds you even outside of such modern innovations, or so I had thought, until I saw their mail address on their website.
On inquiry, I am told a jacket would cost about £800, a two piece suit £1,200. The Savoy Taylors Guild/Moss Bros<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMoss_Bros_Group&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=%2BxXdlSJWCq5aMQrdtOJCn0zcrPcwiTBH6c7WT54kiSI%3D&reserved=0> opposite the imposing beauty of St. John's college chapel tower on St. John's Street describes this process in its formula "Go Bespoke from £295" : "Customise your cut ( "alter the cloth to flatter your shape"). Choose your cloth (" Choose the fabric that feels right for you"). Create your suit" ( "Add character through details that are exclusively yours"), with the powerful sartorial forms on display cut down in price in a near mid-year sale : Suit- £499 now £299; £399.
Between Limited Means and Ever Expanding Ends
So, what are we saying?
One view of economics is that it is the study of the management of scarce resources, implying that since supply and demand can never be equal and disposable income is never equal to demand, opportunity cost, whether in terms of tangibles or intangibles must be factored into all transactions. For every choice made is a price not paid? Is something not always given up to get another thing? Even a hermit who owns nothing except his life which he might not even own since he can't prevent it from ending its terrestrial existence, must pay a price to own nothing. Some Indian hermits go naked because they worship the One Who Owns Everything and therefore Possesses Nothing.
"These books are not such that they are expected to be bought by individuals. It is not expected that a person would just walk in and buy one off the shelf. That would be so for the cheaper works like the "Companion" series [ which, even then, cost more than the average book] , but the broad range of books are expected to go to institutional libraries which have budgets for such acquisitions" sums up the Cambridge University Press bookseller.
Of course, to a person like myself, such strictures do not apply. As far as I am concerned, budget or no budget, where book acquisition is concerned, I am equivalent to an institution. I will do whatever it takes to get them. In all circumstances, my library must grow. All materiel considerations, all comforts, may be postponed till tomorrow but a book missed represents opportunities lost forever. Even if the book is bought another day, the particular intersection of opportunity and capacity for illumination in the fertile soil represented by the state of the mind at the point in time when the book is first encountered cannot be regained.
What scope of finances is required to truly fulfill such a philosophy? What are the chances of acquiring such finances from within a radically bibliophilic existence? Are these questions not an analogue to the relationship between finitude and infinity? How did Dante put it at the climax of Paradiso? "I tried to understand how that contradiction could be, how the human image could fit into the Other, but it was impossible, like a geometer trying to square a circle, but a sudden light smote my understanding so that I knew, but knowing without thought" is one way of paraphrasing the wondering description of the Florentine master.
Infinity of Learning and Scope of Being
"I hold the buying of more books than one can read as nothing less than the soul's reaching towards infinity, which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts" -Anonymous- Waterstones Cambridge bookshop inscription.
To such schools of thought it is not true that nature is meaningful primarily because it comes within human comprehension, as Julian Thomas on "Archeologies of Place and Landscape" in Ian Hodder's edited Archeological Theory Today<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FArchaeological-Theory-Today-Ian-Hodder%2Fdp%2F0745653073&data=01%7C01%7Cemeagwali%40ccsu.edu%7Ced40bcedb77948a0f6a508d6e9275aae%7C2329c570b5804223803b427d800e81b6%7C0&sdata=dvRNTcfvBGwzqO9xIVH1ZvZX4kC43kPtPiOaNSxbjDI%3D&reserved=0> describes a point made by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Others were here before you and have developed means of awareness and of being very different from yours and from whom you can learn, if you adapt yourself to them, such views would assert. "The Gods of the world are trees and animals, long, long before they entrust their sacrosanct magnificence to a human figure" declares Susanne Wenger in Hotter and Brockmann's Adunni: A Portrait of Susanne Wenger. Within such contexts, considerations of cultural forms and their relative value take on a different hue than in a human focused universe.
What would such views hold about the unfulfillable yearning to learn represented by the infinity of books as raising the human being above animals? I would not know but it might be held that that tree might have much to teach you that might not be available from any book. Yes, you can cut the tree down in a short time. It is defenceless to you just as you are defenceless to the vagaries of accident and the relentless entropy of time, an outcome beyond your control. Perhaps the tree and yourself exist within different but convergent universes of value, a symphony in which various harmonies conjoin to create a rhythm so blinding in its intensity we cannot see its pattern but only its units, so thinking ourselves alone in awareness of the experience of being.
Having been both made small, on account of seeing how little I am in the forest of learning, and vastened since I aspire to know as much of that forest as possible, realizing the capacity for this achievement within me, I return to the library to tell you of my adventure this morning.
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
I spent a year as a Visiting Scholar at Oxford and I was not sad to get out of there.
Some of these places are cocoons and artificial zones replete with double speak, hypocrisy, paternalism and self aggrandizement but "le coeur a sa raison que Raison me connait pas"
or in other words, love is complicated.
Ken, I know that is a pretty gross translation.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
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Toyin Falola
Namesake:
There is no such a thing as a global academy! It is an illusion. There are basic commitments to the notion of the academy as an idea.
The Nigerian universities, in the first generation, delivered on its preeminent mission: the creation of manpower. This was its main mission.
Its transformation, since the fulfilment of that mission, has been the problem.
And that transformation has been complicated by the failure of the state. Our colleagues are victims of that failure, and they respond to it (the failure) in ways that work.
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
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Ibrahim Abdullah
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Toyin Falola
Is what I mean. And I removed from it the global that you close with.“The notion of the academic as an idea shaped by local/national practices/cultures “
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Ibrahim Abdullah
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
'The Nigerian universities, in the first generation, delivered on its preeminent mission: the creation of manpower. This was its main mission.
Its transformation, since the fulfilment of that mission, has been the problem.
And that transformation has been complicated by the failure of the state. Our colleagues are victims of that failure, and they respond to it (the failure) in ways that work.'
can the achievements of the ibadan history school, the zaria art society and the nsukka school of art, landmarks in post-classical african cultural history, be encapsulated by the concept of creating manpower?
what went right in those contexts and how can such progressive developments be made permanent features of the african academy?
forms of the academy as global brands
Thanks erudite one.you are muh better in tiuch with the nigerian and african academy and the western acaeemy than i am.you can help us understand this summation better-'The Nigerian universities, in the first generation, delivered on its preeminent mission: the creation of manpower. This was its main mission.
Its transformation, since the fulfilment of that mission, has been the problem.
And that transformation has been complicated by the failure of the state. Our colleagues are victims of that failure, and they respond to it (the failure) in ways that work.'
can the achievements of the ibadan history school, the zaria art society and the nsukka school of art, landmarks in post-classical african cultural history, be encapsulated by the concept of creating manpower?
forms of the academy as global brands
the global academy does exist.this is the core of the academy- 'There are basic commitments to the notion of the academy as an idea'.TFthe idea is the core of the academy. it is what distinguishes the western academy, in its global dominance, from the yoruba origin ifa academy, for example, with its own rigorous rules of scholarly training, application and ethics within a particular metaphysical and epistemic model, an international academy stretching from yorubaland to different parts of nigeria, to the americas and cyberspace-with online ifa schools- and resonating with affiliates in ideas and practices within and beyond nigeria, from the igbo afa and the benin oguega to the dahomean fa, and even further afield, possibly cut off from direct influence but sharing strategic organisational similarities, the chinese i ching.the dominance of idea over form enables a peer reviewed academic journal, the gold standard in academic publication, to be presented in the older print form, the newer digital form, and even within the digital context, as a blog. as i have argued elsewhere, an academic journal can, in an extreme context, as in a collapse of civilization, be presented on banana leaves, as long as it goes through an adequate peer review process, it is theoretically equal, in terms of rigour, to the venerable journal research in african literatures.the global western academy exists in so far as uni of ibadan, benin, jos, makere, etc operate or aspire to operate in terms of the same metaphysical foundations and epistemic principles as as oxford, harvard, uni of tokyo, chinese unis etc.none of these is likely to aspire to operate in terms of the same metaphysical foundations and epistemic principles as ifa divination from nigeria's yorubaland, i ching divination from china or tarot and astrological divination from europe.in deviating fundamentally from those older knowledge systems, now supplanted by the european import, the african academy aspires to be like the sources from where its template comes-the west, principally europe.same with asia, europe and their older knowledge systems.they all aspire to emulate a template decisively systematized in the european enlightenment, distilling pertinent influences from the european middle ages, the middle ages themselves enriched by selective response to the ancient Greek achievement, greece itself influenced perhaps by ancient Egypt.even when the centres of this system integrate metaphysical concepts and epistemic principles from older strata of civilizations within and outside the west, they subsume these under the ratiocinative imperative emerging from the Enlightenment and its modification by post-modernism, none of which developments, in my admittedly limited understand, supplant the epistemic flexibility represented by the ancient greek achievement.what is a university?what exactly is a university? it may be seen as a community of people who come together to assist each other in the development and application of new knowledge.why cambridge and similar systems are great is not primarily bcs of the wonderful buildings or the fantastic libraries, or the great bookshop culture, something it took me years to appreciate, so carried away was i by the overwhelming exposure to books those environments exposed me to, that being the first time i had encountered environments with more books than i could buy or aspire to acquire, since anywhere i had previously lived in nigeria, whether benin or lagos i would either have bought most or all of the books i wanted at a point in time in benin or could aspire to steady accumulation in lagos but i had to at last own up to the fact that such efforts at accumulation in england would stretch into infinity.the greatness of such environments is not centred in the volcanic publishing scope enabling Cambridge UP, for example, to showcase, in their flagship shop on trinity street, new books published weekly by their press, books characteristic of the press' very high quality, books often arrived at through years of work by scholars in different parts of the world.it is the lifestyle of the people producing these books. the daily organisation of opportunities to share research findings, to share research methods, to share grant gaining opportunities, in other words a family working together towards a common goal.that is my understanding.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/03D3E84B-D593-4921-B3EA-601ACCCDC152%40austin.utexas.edu.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
'The Nigerian universities, in the first generation, delivered on its preeminent mission: the creation of manpower. This was its main mission.
Its transformation, since the fulfilment of that mission, has been the problem.
And that transformation has been complicated by the failure of the state. Our colleagues are victims of that failure, and they respond to it (the failure) in ways that work.'
can the achievements of the ibadan history school, the zaria art society and the nsukka school of art, landmarks in post-classical african cultural history, be encapsulated by the concept of creating manpower?
forms of the academy as global brands
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/03D3E84B-D593-4921-B3EA-601ACCCDC152%40austin.utexas.edu.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Harrow, Kenneth
great discussion. to add to, modify, toyin's claim about the "idea" of the university, of the global university, i would further argue it is regional, local, not just global. and if global, like globalization, marked by the same pressures of globalization/global domination, as the economy. the ivy league schools, with some state additions, have global capital/cultural capital. that capital exerts a force. when i went to teach theory at UCAD, or other subjects, i did not invent the field, the dominant theorists or major authors. i had my say about which directions or aspects mattered more than others, but since i cared about my students entering into the field equipped to deal (at the time) with marxist theory, or structuralist theory, psychoanalytical etc., i taught it. those areas. later colonial discourse, anticolonial theory entered the mix.
it is a huge mistake, in my view, to characterize the dominant theoretical or literary or cinematic texts/films/novels, etc to western tastes and values. on the other hand, dominant distribution networks aim to sell novels or films following their own sets of values. the further we get from those institutions or corporations, the more local values and tastes come into play.
it is difficult to explain my thinking without going on too long. i'll give an example. i work to publish african studies and fiction for msu press, but we have very limited resources. i want to have translated an important congolese novel, but lack the money. if a major press were to pick it up, it would have a shot at larger world exposure. this convoluted situation is not a matter of colonial discourses or history, or western domination, but the global economics factors. there is competition to get accepted, to get one's theories accepted, one's values, one's standards. it is the same with the idea of a university. african universities, as mudimbe had written years ago, are subject to the same pressures to establish disciplines as european/american universities. but although we might draw up a list of texts/theories we believe are crucial to our fields, next year it would be different. maybe radically different. who governs that? before you tell me US academies, don't forget the long standing dominance of european philosophy that totally governed our values, and now the prominence of figures like mbembe.
perhaps the idea of the university might be seen as subject to the same competitions and pressures as all other institutional ideas, and remember, even if it is different in nigeria today, it will change both in the states and nigeria tomorrow.
what governs that change?
that's the real question. not "who" governs it, but "what," what systems of exchange, force, prestige, etc., govern the change and movement of capital and ideas.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Nimi Wariboko
The Particular and Universal in the Global/World Academy
By Nimi Wariboko
Boston University, USA
Toyin Falola, Toyin Adepoju, and Ibrahim Abdullah are arguing about the existence or non-existence of the global academy. Falola argued that there is nothing like a global academy. Abdullah countered by stating that there is a global academy as “the sum total of the practices and protocols that govern the production and dissemination knowledge as an end in itself.” Falola while still insisting on his position conceded and landed on a revised position that could be described in this way: the global academy is only a congeries of local academies (a certain constellation of contextualized social practices) committed to the notion of the academy as a descriptive idea.
Falola and Abdullah are both right and wrong at the same time. This is because both of them have ignored the basic underlying logic of the argument concerning what is global or not. Thus, each of them is right in one respect and wrong in the other. The debate between them, in part, concerns the age-old philosophical argument about the relationship between the universal and the particular; and recently about the semiotic resonances of the words global and world.
First, let me start with the debate about world and global and why some African scholars have rejected the use of the word global to describe Africa’s participation in any worldwide social practices. The recently deceased Gambian scholar Lamin Sanneh led this charge in the area of missionary studies. I bring him up because his insights are relevant to the debate between Falola and Abdullah; Sanneh might have charged them guilty of Eurocentricism by framing their debate around the term global academy.
Many Western scholars looked at the kind of changes and the worldwide growth of Christianity marked by a southward shift and named it global Christianity. But Sanneh, beheld the same picture, the same transforming moment, and reckoned that the growth and character of Christianity in the non-western world is homegrown and thus named it world Christianity. Sanneh’s preferred term accents the idea that the logic and impulses for the demographic developments and transformations in Christianity are not centered in the West, do not privilege the notion of European missionaries bringing the gospel to the rest of the world, to hapless and helpless heathens, and emphasizes non-westerners as birthing new understandings of Christianity. Sanneh’s term boldly emphasizes the notion of indigenous societies discovering Christianity for themselves, without replicating the forms and patterns of Christianity developed in Europe. “Christianity was received and expressed through the cultures, customs, and traditions of the people affected” (Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity, 22). His point is that the various indigenous responses to the gospel do not have a Western shape.
In this light, both Falola and Abdullah, by their use of the term of global, are inadvertently saying that the local academies in Africa or in non-Western regions are shaped by the West. Falola’s position, more so than that Abdullah’s, requires him to jettison the term global. Falola’s insistence on the absence of a global academy is akin to Sanneh’s position on Christianity. Local academies everywhere are discovering (or discovered) the search and organization of knowledge for themselves without replicating the forms and patterns of the academy developed in Europe.
Let us now turn to the issue of the universal versus the particular in the world academy. The basic opposition in the positions of Falola and Abdullah is that between the universal and the particular; the academy is both universal and particular, international and particular. Every academy has to be particularized, attuned to its local context, situate itself in a particular lifeworld, dwell among a culture. Yet the particularized academy must be capable of stepping outside its local context, its particular sociocultural roots to assert or participate in the universal (that is the global or world academy). Its social and cultural roots form the route that enables its reach into universality while maintaining its autonomy. We can resolve the deadlock of the Falola-Abdullah debate if we split the individual local academy into world and local, universal and particular; simply seeing it as glocal or worcal (my invented word).
By stating that the local academy can reach the universal I do not want to give the impression that there is a universal out there to be reached, something external and above the particular, contingent local academy. Reaching for the universal, for me, means to birth universality out of the local academy; the universal exploding from a particular lifeworld. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was rooted in a historical and particular Igbo lifeworld, but it was able to transcend the Igbo world and deeply speak to people in other nations and periods. Achebe wrote a local novel and the universal explodes from within it. The tension between the universal and the particular is inscribed in the very frame of the narrative. This tension is part of the novel’s identity.
Falola and Abdullah should be having a different argument. On the one hand, they should be arguing about how to discover universality in the academies that we present as particular. On the other, how to unmask the particular of the academies that present themselves in a universal position. Every universal (global or world) academy is haunted by a particular lifeworld; and every local academy is haunted by an implicit universality. The search and dissemination of knowledge, the renewal and generation of ideas, the organization and reorganization of thoughts that is the academy is abstract/universal in itself and will leaven all local/concrete academies, even as it undermines them. And it cannot be instantiated fully within any local academy; so that any claim of pure universality ought to be recognized as a concrete particularity sallying forth as the abstract universal.
The universality of the academy-as-knowledge apparatus haunts every particular identity from within; nagging it about its inadequacy; troubling, threatening, or destabilizing it because of the gap between universality and the particularity. “Actual universality is not the deep feeling that above all differences, different [academies] share the same basic values, etc.; actual universality appears (actualizes itself) as the experience of negativity, of the inadequacy-to-itself, of a particular identity” (Slavoj Zizek, Violence, 157).
In the light of the foregoing, I hope that the reader will agree with me that Falola or Abdullah’s argumentative position contains elements that are right or wrong. Falola and Abdullah in their arguments identified various dimensions of the scenario of the world or global academy as I have stated. But they also overlooked other crucial dimensions of it. The only consistent position is not to say an academy is local or global, but to say it is local with something in it more than itself, transcending its particularized identity. Or, it is universal (participating in the universal task of knowledge production and dissemination) only to the extent that it is uneasy with its identity as a local academy. These two scholars should be debating how do academies in the West or in Africa experience their inadequacies and not fight over whether the academy as a social practice is global (worldwide, universal) or not.
What is truly universal in the world academy is global capitalism, which increasingly is bringing all search and production of knowledge to its terms of profitability and decontextualization. Capitalist logic now holds in almost all academies; therefore, in reality there is no longer local academy. One way or the other, local academies are in the service of capitalism or about to serve universal capital. They are experiencing their inadequacies about attracting capital in one form or the other to their coffers. And this is what is really universal about them today.
From: <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Reply-To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 12:46 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
great discussion. to add to, modify, toyin's claim about the "idea" of the university, of the global university, i would further argue it is regional, local, not just global. and if global, like globalization, marked by the same pressures of globalization/global domination, as the economy. the ivy league schools, with some state additions, have global capital/cultural capital. that capital exerts a force. when i went to teach theory at UCAD, or other subjects, i did not invent the field, the dominant theorists or major authors. i had my say about which directions or aspects mattered more than others, but since i cared about my students entering into the field equipped to deal (at the time) with marxist theory, or structuralist theory, psychoanalytical etc., i taught it. those areas. later colonial discourse, anticolonial theory entered the mix.
it is a huge mistake, in my view, to characterize the dominant theoretical or literary or cinematic texts/films/novels, etc to western tastes and values. on the other hand, dominant distribution networks aim to sell novels or films following their own sets of values. the further we get from those institutions or corporations, the more local values and tastes come into play.
it is difficult to explain my thinking without going on too long. i'll give an example. i work to publish african studies and fiction for msu press, but we have very limited resources. i want to have translated an important congolese novel, but lack the money. if a major press were to pick it up, it would have a shot at larger world exposure. this convoluted situation is not a matter of colonial discourses or history, or western domination, but the global economics factors. there is competition to get accepted, to get one's theories accepted, one's values, one's standards. it is the same with the idea of a university. african universities, as mudimbe had written years ago, are subject to the same pressures to establish disciplines as european/american universities. but although we might draw up a list of texts/theories we believe are crucial to our fields, next year it would be different. maybe radically different. who governs that? before you tell me US academies, don't forget the long standing dominance of european philosophy that totally governed our values, and now the prominence of figures like mbembe.
perhaps the idea of the university might be seen as subject to the same competitions and pressures as all other institutional ideas, and remember, even if it is different in nigeria today, it will change both in the states and nigeria tomorrow.
what governs that change?
that's the real question. not "who" governs it, but "what," what systems of exchange, force, prestige, etc., govern the change and movement of capital and ideas.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 11:51:40 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
Sublime-
'There is a global academy—the sum total of the practices and protocols that govern the production and dissemination knowledge as an end in itself. The notion of the academic as an idea shaped by local/national practices/cultures does not vitiate the imaginary that constitutes that academy as a global project.'- Ibrahim Abdullah
but does the pursuit of knowledge in the western academy always operate as an end in itself?
what about in science and technology with specific applications?
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Toyin Falola
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Ibrahim Abdullah
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Toyin Falola
Great Ibrahim.
I really think Nimi’s Christianity parallel works. That we should see it in its “translation” (my word, not his), and see the translated particularities of Adeboye, Oyedepo and others as distinctive. Same as in language (as in pidgin), etc. where Africans constitute agencies.
I have a compilation of the visions and missions of over a hundred African universities, and all of them make reference to a “world”---world stature, world this, world that. If you host a conference in Africa, you call it an “international conference”; a journal is an international journal. If you introduce a professor, he/she is an international professor, etc. That claim, in itself, is a problem. No one in the West is required to publish in Africa for promotion, but many in Africa must demonstrate “international stature” by publishing in the West. Some of these enforced practices reveal an academy which fails to do what the Independent Churches are able to do by throwing away the Pope and the Archbishop and creating their own autonomies.
We must create an index for what we will call a successful African university. If many of them stay as teaching schools, as we have in the US that they try to emulate, they will achieve fame and reputation in so short a time. What is the business of having a Chemistry professor without a lab, when there is no African chemistry!!! As research universities, we have to define the scope and limitations, relating what a professor can do in relation to resources.
This is an important thread and, hopefully, other voices will join. Knowledge is about looking at contradictions and complications and not about, as Esu warns us repeatedly, “victory”. There is no such a thing, in Esu’s world, about winning an argument.
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7222 (fax)
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Dompere, Kofi Kissi
Greetings to ALL.
This discussion is very important that demands serious attention
In this view, I would like to suggest the following works for those who are not familiar to isues on the debate especially on the curriculum
1 M. Yesufu (ed.) Creating the African University: Emerging Issues in the 1970s, Ibadon, Oxford univ, press1971
2 Luc E Weber et al (eds.),Reinventing the Research University, London, Economica, 2004
3 Kofi Kissi Dompere, The theory of Philosophical Consciencism, London., addonis.abbey, 2017
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 5:03:03 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Adeshina Afolayan
Subject: [Possible SPAM]: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
'We must create an index for what we will call a successful African university. ... As research universities, we have to define the scope and limitations, relating what a professor can do in relation to resources.TF [ really?]
beautiful- ' Knowledge is about looking at contradictions and complications' -TF
'what systems of exchange, force, prestige, etc., govern the change and movement of capital and ideas.'- Harrow- with reference to the university, particularly the african university, is this force not primarily determined by elopements in europe and north america?
just superb from wariboko--emphases by me-
'Every academy has to be particularized, attuned to its local context, situate itself in a particular lifeworld, dwell among a culture. Yet the particularized academy must be capable of stepping outside its local context, its particular sociocultural roots to assert or participate in the universal (that is the global or world academy). Its social and cultural roots form the route that enables its reach into universality while maintaining its autonomy. ...
By stating that the local academy can reach the universal I do not want to give the impression that there is a universal out there to be reached, something external and above the particular, contingent local academy. Reaching for the universal, for me, means to birth universality out of the local academy; the universal exploding from a particular lifeworld. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was rooted in a historical and particular Igbo lifeworld, but it was able to transcend the Igbo world and deeply speak to people in other nations and periods. Achebe wrote a local novel and the universal explodes from within it. The tension between the universal and the particular is inscribed in the very frame of the narrative. This tension is part of the novel’s identity.
Falola and Abdullah should be having a different argument. On the one hand, they should be arguing about how to discover universality in the academies that we present as particular. On the other, how to unmask the particular of the academies that present themselves in a universal position. Every universal (global or world) academy is haunted by a particular lifeworld; and every local academy is haunted by an implicit universality. The search and dissemination of knowledge, the renewal and generation of ideas, the organization and reorganization of thoughts that is the academy is abstract/universal in itself and will leaven all local/concrete academies, even as it undermines them. And it cannot be instantiated fully within any local academy; so that any claim of pure universality ought to be recognized as a concrete particularity sallying forth as the abstract universal.
The universality of the academy-as-knowledge apparatus haunts every particular identity from within; nagging it about its inadequacy; troubling, threatening, or destabilizing it because of the gap between universality and the particularity.'- Wariboko
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/709F189E-A9A8-4450-A7C4-BA71C80F8099%40austin.utexas.edu.
Abidogun, Jamaine M
I find this discussion intriguing as my work from the beginning centers on the cultural push pull of education (especially imposed education – i.e. Eastern, Western, Muslim, Christian) in colonial and neocolonial contexts. I agree with Prof Wariboko when he states, “Capitalist logic now holds in almost all academies; therefore, in reality there is no longer local academy.” But I have to qualify it as an administration controlled captivity. Admittedly Afrocentric paradigms are at the heart of my theoretical development, so in that vein my argument has always been that the players – the thinkers, the faculty, the students, the staff, the community always shape the knowledge within the local academy – but that knowledge gets prioritized, contested, and filtered as academies compete for resources and accolades (assuming one goes with the other within a capitalist model). This is what I label the push-pull of educational culture (regardless of its level or model). African education systems were marginalized for centuries now, but they influence everyone and everything on the continent. At the same time, the historically imposed systems whether Eastern or Western in origin to a large degree continue to shape the global and local perceptions of what is “acceptable” that is education with cultural capital (see Bourdieu’s work on this subject). It is just a matter of degree what cultural influence dominants within the Particular context, but there is always push-pull. I offer a brief overview on Nigeria’s university system (attached here). It does not go into the philosophical, but is it easy enough to see that Christianity (“world or global” -code for Western-Christian churches specifically) partner with African churches to support the growth of these academies (again administration/owners of the academy). While the thinkers continue to debate and search for knowledge; the capitalist, prior colonial and neo-colonial administrations still hold major influence over most of these academies. In my humble opinion, through decades of ethnographic study and hundreds of interviews with faculty, dept heads, students and community members in Ghana and Nigeria – what I find the real threat to be is the inability of the system to consistently support the recognition of African education systems (regardless of which religion one chooses) and the knowledge production found within those systems. While on a personal level 99% of those interviewed readily identify African education’s existence and their lived experiences of it; once they enter that “academy” classroom how to make it part of the institutional (western and eastern designed models) becomes problematic for various reasons. The real threat, in my opinion, is that African knowledge and ways of knowing and learning that support societies are being lost and what is replacing it is a capitalist model imposed upon communities that are already competing for material wellbeing. These are strong words and I apologize if I appear to miss the subtleties of the argument.
So the struggle continues….
Peace,
Jamaine Abidogun
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of Ibrahim Abdullah
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 3:25 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Adeshina Afolayan <adeshina...@gmail.com>
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
The Particular and Universal in the Global/World Academy
By Nimi Wariboko
Boston University, USA
Toyin Falola, Toyin Adepoju, and Ibrahim Abdullah are arguing about the existence or non-existence of the global academy. Falola argued that there is nothing like a global academy. Abdullah countered by stating that there is a global academy as “the sum total of the practices and protocols that govern the production and dissemination knowledge as an end in itself.” Falola while still insisting on his position conceded and landed on a revised position that could be described in this way: the global academy is only a congeries of local academies (a certain constellation of contextualized social practices) committed to the notion of the academy as a descriptive idea.
Falola and Abdullah are both right and wrong at the same time. This is because both of them have ignored the basic underlying logic of the argument concerning what is global or not. Thus, each of them is right in one respect and wrong in the other. The debate between them, in part, concerns the age-old philosophical argument about the relationship between the universal and the particular; and recently about the semiotic resonances of the words global and world.
First, let me start with the debate about world and global and why some African scholars have rejected the use of the word global to describe Africa’s participation in any worldwide social practices. The recently deceased Gambian scholar Lamin Sanneh led this charge in the area of missionary studies. I bring him up because his insights are relevant to the debate between Falola and Abdullah; Sanneh might have charged them guilty of Eurocentricism by framing their debate around the term global academy.
Many Western scholars looked at the kind of changes and the worldwide growth of Christianity marked by a southward shift and named it global Christianity. But Sanneh, beheld the same picture, the same transforming moment, and reckoned that the growth and character of Christianity in the non-western world is homegrown and thus named it world Christianity. Sanneh’s preferred term accents the idea that the logic and impulses for the demographic developments and transformations in Christianity are not centered in the West, do not privilege the notion of European missionaries bringing the gospel to the rest of the world, to hapless and helpless heathens, and emphasizes non-westerners as birthing new understandings of Christianity. Sanneh’s term boldly emphasizes the notion of indigenous societies discovering Christianity for themselves, without replicating the forms and patterns of Christianity developed in Europe. “Christianity was received and expressed through the cultures, customs, and traditions of the people affected” (Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity, 22). His point is that the various indigenous responses to the gospel do not have a Western shape.
In this light, both Falola and Abdullah, by their use of the term of global, are inadvertently saying that the local academies in Africa or in non-Western regions are shaped by the West. Falola’s position, more so than that Abdullah’s, requires him to jettison the term global. Falola’s insistence on the absence of a global academy is akin to Sanneh’s position on Christianity. Local academies everywhere are discovering (or discovered) the search and organization of knowledge for themselves without replicating the forms and patterns of the academy developed in Europe.
Let us now turn to the issue of the universal versus the particular in the world academy. The basic opposition in the positions of Falola and Abdullah is that between the universal and the particular; the academy is both universal and particular, international and particular. Every academy has to be particularized, attuned to its local context, situate itself in a particular lifeworld, dwell among a culture. Yet the particularized academy must be capable of stepping outside its local context, its particular sociocultural roots to assert or participate in the universal (that is the global or world academy). Its social and cultural roots form the route that enables its reach into universality while maintaining its autonomy. We can resolve the deadlock of the Falola-Abdullah debate if we split the individual local academy into world and local, universal and particular; simply seeing it as glocal or worcal (my invented word).
By stating that the local academy can reach the universal I do not want to give the impression that there is a universal out there to be reached, something external and above the particular, contingent local academy. Reaching for the universal, for me, means to birth universality out of the local academy; the universal exploding from a particular lifeworld. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was rooted in a historical and particular Igbo lifeworld, but it was able to transcend the Igbo world and deeply speak to people in other nations and periods. Achebe wrote a local novel and the universal explodes from within it. The tension between the universal and the particular is inscribed in the very frame of the narrative. This tension is part of the novel’s identity.
Falola and Abdullah should be having a different argument. On the one hand, they should be arguing about how to discover universality in the academies that we present as particular. On the other, how to unmask the particular of the academies that present themselves in a universal position. Every universal (global or world) academy is haunted by a particular lifeworld; and every local academy is haunted by an implicit universality. The search and dissemination of knowledge, the renewal and generation of ideas, the organization and reorganization of thoughts that is the academy is abstract/universal in itself and will leaven all local/concrete academies, even as it undermines them. And it cannot be instantiated fully within any local academy; so that any claim of pure universality ought to be recognized as a concrete particularity sallying forth as the abstract universal.
The universality of the academy-as-knowledge apparatus haunts every particular identity from within; nagging it about its inadequacy; troubling, threatening, or destabilizing it because of the gap between universality and the particularity. “Actual universality is not the deep feeling that above all differences, different [academies] share the same basic values, etc.; actual universality appears (actualizes itself) as the experience of negativity, of the inadequacy-to-itself, of a particular identity” (Slavoj Zizek, Violence, 157).
In the light of the foregoing, I hope that the reader will agree with me that Falola or Abdullah’s argumentative position contains elements that are right or wrong. Falola and Abdullah in their arguments identified various dimensions of the scenario of the world or global academy as I have stated. But they also overlooked other crucial dimensions of it. The only consistent position is not to say an academy is local or global, but to say it is local with something in it more than itself, transcending its particularized identity. Or, it is universal (participating in the universal task of knowledge production and dissemination) only to the extent that it is uneasy with its identity as a local academy. These two scholars should be debating how do academies in the West or in Africa experience their inadequacies and not fight over whether the academy as a social practice is global (worldwide, universal) or not.
What is truly universal in the world academy is global capitalism, which increasingly is bringing all search and production of knowledge to its terms of profitability and decontextualization. Capitalist logic now holds in almost all academies; therefore, in reality there is no longer local academy. One way or the other, local academies are in the service of capitalism or about to serve universal capital. They are experiencing their inadequacies about attracting capital in one form or the other to their coffers. And this is what is really universal about them today.
From: <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Reply-To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 12:46 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
great discussion. to add to, modify, toyin's claim about the "idea" of the university, of the global university, i would further argue it is regional, local, not just global. and if global, like globalization, marked by the same pressures of globalization/global domination, as the economy. the ivy league schools, with some state additions, have global capital/cultural capital. that capital exerts a force. when i went to teach theory at UCAD, or other subjects, i did not invent the field, the dominant theorists or major authors. i had my say about which directions or aspects mattered more than others, but since i cared about my students entering into the field equipped to deal (at the time) with marxist theory, or structuralist theory, psychoanalytical etc., i taught it. those areas. later colonial discourse, anticolonial theory entered the mix.
it is a huge mistake, in my view, to characterize the dominant theoretical or literary or cinematic texts/films/novels, etc to western tastes and values. on the other hand, dominant distribution networks aim to sell novels or films following their own sets of values. the further we get from those institutions or corporations, the more local values and tastes come into play.
it is difficult to explain my thinking without going on too long. i'll give an example. i work to publish african studies and fiction for msu press, but we have very limited resources. i want to have translated an important congolese novel, but lack the money. if a major press were to pick it up, it would have a shot at larger world exposure. this convoluted situation is not a matter of colonial discourses or history, or western domination, but the global economics factors. there is competition to get accepted, to get one's theories accepted, one's values, one's standards. it is the same with the idea of a university. african universities, as mudimbe had written years ago, are subject to the same pressures to establish disciplines as european/american universities. but although we might draw up a list of texts/theories we believe are crucial to our fields, next year it would be different. maybe radically different. who governs that? before you tell me US academies, don't forget the long standing dominance of european philosophy that totally governed our values, and now the prominence of figures like mbembe.
perhaps the idea of the university might be seen as subject to the same competitions and pressures as all other institutional ideas, and remember, even if it is different in nigeria today, it will change both in the states and nigeria tomorrow.
what governs that change?
that's the real question. not "who" governs it, but "what," what systems of exchange, force, prestige, etc., govern the change and movement of capital and ideas.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 11:51:40 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delights of Cambridge
Sublime-
'There is a global academy—the sum total of the practices and protocols that govern the production and dissemination knowledge as an end in itself. The notion of the academic as an idea shaped by local/national practices/cultures does not vitiate the imaginary that constitutes that academy as a global project.'- Ibrahim Abdullah
but does the pursuit of knowledge in the western academy always operate as an end in itself?
what about in science and technology with specific applications?
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Virus-free. www.avast.com |
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Nimi Wariboko
Dear Sir OAA:
Clarifying Lamin Sanneh’s Point on Global versus World
Greetings, let me make two quick clarification based on your response to my intervention in this fascinating thread. First, I did not say that I invented the word glocal, but worcal. Note that in the parenthesis following the worcal, I used “word” and not words […simply seeing it as glocal or worcal (my invented word)]. I used the word invention with tongue in cheek; you never know who else had used it in the past.
Second, Lamin Sanneh was not oblivious about how Christianity came to Africa. What I did not state clearly yesterday is this: For him, the use of the word global indicates that the spread and activities of Christianity today has a center, or the growth impulses of Christianity in the South radiate from a place, from the West. He preferred the term World Christianity to Global Christianity as it indicates multiple sources and directions of influence.
Let make his argument clearer by resorting to communication-network theory. There are basically two types of network in the communication engineering and computer world. There is the centralized control network where every machine (client) is hooked to a point (central computer, server) and this is what is called master-slave network or two-tier architecture. This is like in the old days your local area network (LAN) in the local office where every connection goes through the central point, but it is so fast you do not notice that there is intermediation between your computer and that of your colleague on the same network. The other network-type is the peer-to-peer distributed network in which there is no master-slave relationship, like the type telephone companies like Verizon use to distribute and manage calls. It is a full duplex network with no central control; control is in the hands of each peer (node), each node (workstation) has equivalent responsibilities and capabilities, and intelligence in the system is pushed to each peer and end-users. This type of network is highly intelligent, scalable, survivable, and reconfigurable. From these simple descriptions of the types of network one can see what kind of idea Sanneh had in mind when he used the term world as against global. World Christianity is peer-to-peer network; and global Christianity in his reckoning is master-slave network.
Thanks and blessings,
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University
From: <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, June 7, 2019 at 4:00 PM
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Adeshina Afolayan <adeshina...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds ofSacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delightsof Cambridge
This is an interesting essay which problematizes concepts such as global, universal and ends up raising its own problematiques.
First of all the author wrote of two invented words glocal and worcal. I think he can lay claim to inventing the last except of course if Farooq Kperogi has the first, which is the title of his book as a loan word from this essayist previous work.
Let me disagree with Sanneh's problematization of the global and his substitution with its synonym world, or more approoriately the underlying reasons. For Sanneh to argue the manner he did is to ignore the antecedents of the spread of Christianity to Africa and suppose that it permeated the whole of Africa through the activities of trans-Saharan African traders to Egypt and the Maghreb just like Islam.
Christianity came to most sub Saharan countries by sea with the activities of European traders who embarked on forced conversion by positing the religion as agent of civilization through a papal edict which culminated in enslavement of Africans and ultimately colonization of the continent.
The impetus for the local flavour of Christianity in Africa came from another event in the European Christian calendar: the Reformation set in motion by Martin Luther and his 95 theses. It was the proliferation of churches engendered by the Reformation that gave the enslaved Africans in the Americas the tool to subvert the slave master's goals through the creation of syncretic religions such as Candomle, Santeria and whose reflux saw the formation of churches such as Aladura and Celestial Church of Christ.
Now let's turn our attention to the global , the universal and the particular. It is undeniable that the constitution of the university system in its present form owes much to European global colonialism ( from the Americas to Africa and to Asia.) The academy as site of production of knowledge; yes! But the shape and organization of knowledge (I.e what constitutes the disciplines and how they are to be studied) is shaped largely by that colonial encounter most glaringly in the sciences (This is perhaps what motivates my re-examination of the discipline of music to give it a truly global and not Eurocentric flavour, starting from popular music.)
In the arts the Eurocentric outer core is gradually shifting ground for the local contents and the local contents are leading to the reassessment and modification of the outer core.
Until new modalities of doing science is democratized across the globe (say Physics) that is acceptable to all ( including the West) in their particularities what is global and universal will continue to be the inherited welthanchauung of the West and from there will universtities around the world still retain their name as -univers- cities. Once that premise no longer holds, what the world would be left with would be multiversities.
OAA.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nimi Wariboko <nimi...@msn.com>
Date: 06/06/2019 20:31 (GMT+00:00)
Cc: Adeshina Afolayan <adeshina...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Discoveries in Multiple Kinds ofSacred Space: Finding a New Abiola Irele Essay Amidst the Cultural Delightsof Cambridge
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/AM0PR04MB4275342A5F1A59F6E0FE6AAFA6100%40AM0PR04MB4275.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
Obododimma Oha
This lovely!
I am reading it. Thank you for sharing it.
Sincerely,
Obododimma.
On 6/4/19, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
> [image: download.jpg]
>
>
>
> *
> Discoveries in Multiple Kinds of Sacred Space *
>
> * Finding a
>
>
>
>
>
> *
> Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju*
> *
> Compcros <http://danteadinkra.wixsite.com/compcros>*
> * Comparative
> Cognitive Processes and Systems*
> * "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos
> in Search of Knowledge"*
>
>
>
> *Discovering a New Abiola Irele Essay *: *An Invitation to Delights
> of Conceptual Density and Stylistic Creativity*
> I am writing this to announce to anybody who is interested that I just
> discovered a new essay by the philosopher, literary and cultural critic
> Abiola Irele.
>
>
> Why should I be so happy to discover an essay by anyone? Is he a writer
> whose work has long been out of circulation and badly needs organization
> into an accessible format? Is it like a Vincent van Gogh
> for rent in the hungry years when he was building his art, a discovery that
> could net me a fortune? Imagine the irony-Van Gogh died desperately poor
> in 1890, of a self inflicted gunshot wound in a sanatorium. Yet, when an
> airline a few years ago wanted to advertise how much they can save
> companies that fly with them, they did not use any words. They simply
> showed the picture of a Van Gogh painting as the value of what could be
> gained by using their services. . Van Gogh has become so priced that many
> museums cannot afford his work. Is the discovery of the Irele essay in
> that magnitude of fortune?
>
> Not in a monetary sense.
>
> Irele is very much alive and well at Kwara Sate University in Nigeria [
> This essay was written in 2013. The master transitioned in 2017]. The
> essay is in a modern book in a bookshop just down the road from the central
> public library in Cambridge. I feel fulfilled because it means that I have
> seen an Irele essay I did not know about before.
>
>
>
> Why is an Irele essay important to me and possibly to others?
>
> It is so because Irele's writing is great in conceptual density and
> stylistic creativity. Anything written by Irele is an event. His sentences
> and paragraphs constitute research projects, so loaded are the lines with
> ideas, a radiant dynamism of ideation and expression evoking glimpses of
> a cognitive universe beyond, of which the sentence is a peak rising above
> a vast world lying beneath.
>
>
>
> Where did I see this essay?
>
> I came across it as I was browsing through the Cambridge University Press
> flagship bookshop on Trinity Street, Cambridge. I had settled down to work
> in the Cambridge Central Library when I became restless and decided to go
> for a walk. I have learnt that such restlessness is often productive. It
> means my spirit wants to show me something. I put it that way because that
> need to wander towards an unknown destination always leads to inspiring
> discoveries.
>
> Cambridge bookshops and Cambridge college chapels and churches are two
> correlative forms of sacred space, the spatial density of both within the
> city centre evoking most powerfully the alliance of spiritual seeking and
> learning that is at the centre of the history of the university city. The
> cloistered silence, the magnificent interiors of the chapels and churches
> encase wonderful spaces where the mind can roam at will in seeking that
> which is not named yet is the mother of the ten thousand things, to evoke
>
> These explicitly sacred structures resonate ( a word I learnt from Irele
> through the term "articulated resonance" describing the task of the
> literary critic in his "The Criticism of Modern African Literature")
> with the cathedral splendour of the bookshop, be it Heffers, with its
> magnificent cascades of shelving, located on Trinity Street, the same
> street housing the ancient façade of Trinity College, where Isaac Newton
> would have taken his solitary walks pondering celestial immensities, his
> mind revolving with the orbits of the celestial bodies, capturing those
> grand revolutions in numerical relationships and precise verbal
> descriptions now known as the theory of gravity. “ So I walk the same
> streets as the master of space”, would be my thought as I lay my hand on
> the ancient door to Trinity.
>
>
>
> The intimate grandeur of the Magdalene College chapel, in its balance of
> grace and radiant dignity, evokes the contained splendour of Waterstones
> bookshop, on Sidney Street, itself echoing, by contrast, the now vanished
> spaces of the colossus of bookshops, Borders, which, in comparison with
> the more limited spatial aspirations of other bookshops, recalls the
> absolute command of space, the transformation of the surrounding landscape
> into the awesome depths of oceanic infinity, an impression created by the
> sheer bulk and awesome grace of that structure resting on the desert sands,
> as one observer describes the experience of confronting the wonder of the
> ancient world represented by the Pyramids of Giza
>
>
>
> The jewels of the Oxfam bookshop further down on Sidney Street, the
> density of texts in the Amnesty International bookshop on Mill Road, the
> treasures of G. David beside the watching gravestones congregating in the
> churchyard of St. Edward's Passage, the wonderful bargains of the Angel
> Bookshop and the eye opening, never ending discoveries of the market
> booksellers, the uncompromising wealth of the cognitive density and sheer
> expansiveness of the Cambridge University Press Bookshop, all these
> recall the wealth concealed in the resonant silence of St. Bene'ts church
> on Bene't street, small in space but manifesting a core of silence that
> evokes unspeakable treasures at the intersection of the source of being
> and the world of becoming.
>
>
>
> These bibliophilic luminaries imply that I am like a person faced by
> an awesome landscape as described by Immanuel Kant on the Sublime in
> of Judgement*, reduced to smallness by the sheer scope of variegated
> the self reaching out to embrace this ever expanding universe of
> knowledge.
>
>
>
>
>
> It was in that spirit I stumbled on the *Cambridge Companion to the African
> Novel*
> <http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Companion-African-Companions-Literature/dp/052167168X>.
> he has to say about the African novel, particularly at this point in time.
> When was it published? 2009. Not too far away, not very near either.
>
> Looked through the list of contents. Saw Dan Izevbaye, one of those who
> defined the landscape of writing about African literature some years ago.
> Saw Ato Quayson, who has written some theoretically rich and sophisticated
> works I have come across. Looked quickly through the others. I put the
> Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism*
> <http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Companion-Companions-Literature-ebook/dp/B009UTEYSQ>.
> directly, face to face, to put it in one way. Anything on African
> mysticism? None on display nor do I expect any in publication here. A new
> field, which I intend to contribute to building [ I have begun with these
> essays : "Mystical Theory and Experience Across Cultures" Part 1
> and Part 2
> <https://www.facebook.com/notes/oluwatoyin-vincent-adepoju/mystical-theory-and-experience-across-cultures-part-2/10152944419179103/>
> ]. Any other books on mysticism? Yes, I am told. *The Cambridge Companion
> to Christian Mysticism*
> <http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Companion-Christian-Mysticism-Companions/dp/0521682274>
> another on mysticism and negative theology-the idea that God is best
> described in terms of what he is not rather than of what he is, to
> summarize one definition.
>
>
> Saw the names of the immortal greats in literature, theology etc-
> Companion to Kafka*,*Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth* etc. "When are you
> booksellers with a very serious face, the way that the other day, grasping
> Science*
> <http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/series/series_display/item3936868/?site_locale=en_GB>.
> comprehensive history of science in 30 years...The contributors, world
> leaders in their respective specialties, engage with current
> historiographical and methodological controversies and strike out on
> positions of their own", yet the price of even one volume of the eight
> volume work, the cheapest being £100, does not seem to call out for
> immediate purchase as you are drawn to it.
>
>
> "Exactly. That kind of book would have been worked on by many contributors
> over a long period of time", the bookseller responds. "How is such a work
> to be priced? Who is expected to read it? Who will buy it? It will be
> read, it will be bought but its direction is specialized and those
> institutions that must have it as part of their foundations of knowledge
> have budgets for such acquisitions", is my summary of the bookseller's
> further justification of the Press' strategy. "We produce works that
> constitute the very foundations of knowledge in various disciplines, the
> inescapable summative and critical engagement with both the cutting edge
> and the state of the field within both historical and contemporary
> lenses in each field, the bedrock on which other works stand", is how I
> sum up the vision of his presentation of the vision of Press, and he
> concurs.
>
>
>
>
> Aga Range Cookers <http://www.agaliving.com/> were on display a short
> elegance of a modern jet. Price- £10,000. Hire purchase-£250 down payment
> and about £150 or slightly above monthly payment. According to the
> salesman, they last for generations. An Aga kitchen is associated with a
> certain kind of person and a certain kind of home. For some people, it
> is a way of signalling they they have arrived, is his summation of the
> meaning of the brand.
>
> nearby Charles Tyrwhit
> t's suits,
> <http://www.ctshirts.co.uk/men%27s-suits/Grey-mohair-tailored-fit-Black-Label-suit-?q=gbpdefault%7C%7CBSA18GRY%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C&sortBy=Price%20%28Descending%29>
>
> On the online Style Forum
> Hallam in black. This is my first pair of Oxford. Do you think the front of
> the shoe(toe cap?) look[s] a bit weird? Is the price of USD333
> reasonable?"
>
> Moving from the Web back to Cambridge, away from the city centre past
> King's College, you get to Ede and Ravenscroft
> on display. You are confronted with a world whose distinctiveness is
> evident, distinct even from the costly elegance of the shops on the high
> end Grand Arcade where you find Anga, Loakes and Charles Tyrwhitt. At this
> point, you have entered a lifestyle enculturation zone, where you
> distinguish between the suit for weekend wear and the suit for formal wear.
> walking stick . For a suit for formal wear
>
>
> Beyond the pedigreed world of Ede and Ravenscroft is the uncompromising
> focus on elegance at the highest pitch at Anthony
> refinement of the art of men's clothing. The ties, the shirts, the
> jackets, are obvious expressions of a pinnacle in the glory of clothing,
> that transformation of necessity into art central to much of civilization.
>
>
> "You could buy a suit here for a £1,000 but it would be a very good suit"
> the man in charge inside Anthony dressed in the sharp but sober accents
> evident in the display on the shop window declares. The shop's offerings
> are largely Italian and are clearly different from anything else in shop
> window displays in Cambridge, even though it stocks the same standard line
> of suits, jackets and ties as the others but with a touch that stands out
> with a subtle and yet definite uniqueness. "Do you think Italians
> demonstrate more style than the English?" I ask him? "Of course. The
> Italians do not compromise. They are in a different class entirely" is my
> there – Anthony’s is the perfect service" is the testimonial of Professor
> A.Gibson, Cambridge, on their website.
>
>
> I never fail to notice and stop to gape with veneration at the window
> display. "This is how a human being should be clothed", is the impression
> it gives me. Clothed in fabrics and a flawlessly stylish cut that
> reflects the serene perfection of the art of nature as demonstrated in the
> human frame. Beside the gloriously sharp shirt and eloquent delicacy of the
> ribbon that is the tie beside it, is the statement of the monetary value of
> this arrival at true recognition of how to honor the human being through
> sartorial culture:
>
>
> "Canali suit: £995; Canali silk jacket: £795; Working watch cufflinks-
> small watches in the form of cufflinks: £95".
>
>
> "Anthony is a shop that brings the essence of Bond Street and quality of
> Savile Row to Cambridge" states their website. You need to experience the
> concentrated sophistication of the commercial and lifestyle nexus that is
> Bond
> most exclusive menswear industry in England.
>
>
> The Savile Row reference leads you to another world entirely, where "your
> needs, hopes and desires" for your suit are crafted into the suit, handmade
> especially for you alone, with suits in the "golden mile of tailoring" as
> around £3,000
> <http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/style/articles/2011-07/19/savile-row-bespoke-suits-best-tailors-london/viewall>
> .
>
> One totally bespoke or total tailor made suit outfit in Cambridge is
> Tailor
> workmanlike innards of a workshop, an eschewing of elegance understood by
> the cognoscenti as a focus on process leading to an exquisite product, a
> product that is so unique no example needs to represent it in the name of a
> window display. An outfit so confident of their clientele and image, they
> don't bother to use email. The customer base finds you even outside of such
> modern innovations, or so I had thought, until I saw their mail address on
> their website.
>
>
> On inquiry, I am told a jacket would cost about £800, a two piece suit
> £1,200. The Savoy Taylors Guild/Moss Bros
> this process in its formula "Go Bespoke from £295" : "Customise your cut (
> "alter the cloth to flatter your shape"). Choose your cloth (" Choose the
> fabric that feels right for you"). Create your suit" ( "Add character
> through details that are exclusively yours"), with the powerful sartorial
> forms on display cut down in price in a near mid-year sale : Suit- £499 now
> £299; £399.
>
>
>
> like a geometer trying to square a circle, but a sudden light smote my
> understanding so that I knew, but knowing without thought" is one way of
> paraphrasing the wondering description of the Florentine master.
>
>
>
> "I hold the buying of more books than one can read as nothing less than
> the soul's reaching towards infinity, which is the only thing that
> raises us above the beasts" -Anonymous- Waterstones Cambridge bookshop
> inscription.
>
> J. Ki-Zerbo in the wonderful essay on "African Prehistoric Art" in the
> <http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/dialogue/general-and-regional-histories/general-history-of-africa/volumes/complete-edition/volume-i-methodology-and-african-prehistory/>
> Vol.I
> :
> <http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/dialogue/general-and-regional-histories/general-history-of-africa/volumes/complete-edition/volume-i-methodology-and-african-prehistory/>**Methodology
> and African Prehistory
> <http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/dialogue/general-and-regional-histories/general-history-of-africa/volumes/complete-edition/volume-i-methodology-and-african-prehistory/>
> *argues
> distinct from animals. It has been proven that animals make tools. Perhaps
> Ki-Zerbo is not accurate even with the focus on art. Bees are described as
> constructing intricate movements to signal to other bees the distance to
> locations of food. Is that not dance, a form of art? Philosophies of nature
> which do not limit sophisticated cognition to human beings are more
> diffident, more qualified about what constitutes the distinctively human or
> what represents the most valued qualities within the tapestry of nature.
>
>
> To such schools of thought it is not true that nature is meaningful
> primarily because it comes within human comprehension, as Julian Thomas on
> "Archeologies of Place and Landscape" in Ian Hodder's edited
> Theory Today*
> <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archaeological-Theory-Today-Ian-Hodder/dp/0745653073>
> a point made by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Others were here before
> you and have developed means of awareness and of being very different from
> yours and from whom you can learn, if you adapt yourself to them, such
> views would assert. "The Gods of the world are trees and animals, long,
> long before they entrust their sacrosanct magnificence to a human figure"
> Susanne Wenger.* Within such contexts, considerations of cultural forms
> universe.
>
>
> What would such views hold about the unfulfillable yearning to learn
> represented by the infinity of books as raising the human being above
> animals? I would not know but it might be held that that tree might have
> much to teach you that might not be available from any book. Yes, you can
> cut the tree down in a short time. It is defenceless to you just as you are
> defenceless to the vagaries of accident and the relentless entropy of
> time, an outcome beyond your control. Perhaps the tree and yourself exist
> within different but convergent universes of value, a symphony in which
> various harmonies conjoin to create a rhythm so blinding in its intensity
> we cannot see its pattern but only its units, so thinking ourselves alone
> in awareness of the experience of being.
>
> Having been both made small, on account of seeing how little I am in the
> forest of learning, and vastened since I aspire to know as much of that
> forest as possible, realizing the capacity for this achievement within
> me, I return to the library to tell you of my adventure this morning.
>
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--
B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.
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