Toyin Falola and the Culture of Academic Productivity

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

It would be wonderful if Toyin Falola could take time to educate people about how he is able to develop his growing scope of productivity in  academic book publication. The last time I checked, he does not list single texts like articles or talks, of which he has many,  on his website, only books, which he began publishing as sole author, co-author  or editor decades ago on completing his PhD at the then University of Ife.

This number has been steadily growing, reaching 11 books published in 2017 or 2018. This year he has brought out two already, one massive sole authored text and another co-authored, books that are likely to have been years in production. 

He also runs a good number of academic book series with various publishers.

What Falola is achieving represents the development of a skill. A method of harmonizing mind, body and lifestyle.

It would be wonderful if that skill could be described by Falola, at his own convenience and using a platform of his choice.

Along with the product of a creative initiative, such as books, there exists the methods through which that initiative was brought into existence.

The development of such methods by the individual, within the context of the generic framework of methods distinctive to  particular endeavours as actualized within modes of creativity in general, may be understood as the central goal of research training.

That goal, however,  should be central to all education, in the understanding that learning is best developed as an individualized process, even though operating to a greater or lesser degree within the general contexts of cognitive development in disciplinary and social terms.

What approaches to learning and expression prove particularly productive for specific individuals? Can others learn from these examples in developing their own distinctive creative identities?

It is in this context that learning about his creative strategies from Toyin Falola would be helpful. 

Moving from the creative products to glimpse the transformative spaces through which these products come into being in the mind and hands of the creator.