The Intrinsic and Universal Significance of Yoruba Aesthetics Demonstrated in Relation to the Work of Babatunde Lawal and Rowland Abiodun : Book Project Announcement and Request for Donors
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Aug 19, 2020, 1:16:01 PM8/19/20
to usaafricadialogue, Yoruba Affairs, nigerianworldforum, Politics Naija
The Intrinsic and Universal Significance of Yoruba Aesthetics
Demonstrated in Relation to the Work of
Babatunde Lawal and Rowland Abiodun
Book Project Announcement and Request for Donors
Collage by myself of pictures of Babatunde Lawal, left, and Rowland Abiodun, right, used in evoking the fierce activity, the absolute concentration and reflective distillation through which these masters of research and writing have shaped an empire of knowledge in excavating into written scholarship aesthetic insights emerging from Yoruba civilization.
Lawal image by Onuora Chijioke on his Art Historical Association of Nigeria Biennial Conference 2018, University of Nigeria, Nsukka Facebook album.
Abiodun image from Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth on Facebook.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Project Rationale
One of the greatest achievements in African thought is represented by the explorations of Yoruba aesthetics individually undertaken by Rowland Abiodun and Babatunde Lawal.
Abiodun's work is vital for understanding the social context and epistemic and institutional imperatives of Lawal's work.
Lawal's publications complement Abiodun's explorations, demonstrating their further possibilities.
These scholars' contributions are recognised as seminal to understanding Yoruba aesthetics, in particular, and to the study of African aesthetics, in general.
The wealth of these achievements, however, is yet to be adequately examined, most of the essays by these figures representing various layers of unified information and analysis that gives them the ideational density and the evocative range of books.
Their work also resonates far beyond the Yoruba and African contexts, facilitating an expansive grasp of aesthetics across the West and Asia, as is suggested by my essay "Theories and Practices of Cognition : Sense Perception and Metaphysical Integration in Western, Asian, Islamic and African Thought.''
Method of Execution
I plan to bring out three major books and possibly some smaller ones in order to do justice to the scope of achievement demonstrated by the work of Lawal and Abiodun.
I intend a
presentation of all Abiodun's and Lawal's published works so far,
including extracts from Lawal's The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender and Social
Harmony in an African Culture.
This would integrate a detailed analytical response to each of their publications, a collection of all overviews of their work and biographical essays situating each scholar's life and work in the context of the development of African intellectual culture, a contextualisation amplified by accounts from people whom they have influenced directly or indirectly, such shaping encounters being strategic to their influence in their fields.
This would integrate a detailed analytical response to each of their publications, a collection of all overviews of their work and biographical essays situating each scholar's life and work in the context of the development of African intellectual culture, a contextualisation amplified by accounts from people whom they have influenced directly or indirectly, such shaping encounters being strategic to their influence in their fields.
The third book would hold overviews of Abiodun's work, responses that have emerged relatively plentifully after he published Yoruba Art and Language : Seeking the African in African Art in 2014.
I shall be using social media, blogs and websites as workshops for the work in progress. I find these platforms invigorating on account of their openness and the freewheeling creativity they encourage. Using them will also be crucial to making the insights developed by the project accessible to as broad a public as possible, unlike the withdrawal of scholarship on African art to challengingly priced books sequestered in the exclusiveness of academia.
I am giving myself two years at most to complete the project.
Contact with Authors and Previous Publisher
I am giving myself two years at most to complete the project.
Contact with Authors and Previous Publisher
I am in dialogue with Abiodun on the project. I am trying to reach Lawal. I have contacted Cambridge University Press who published Yoruba Art and Language and am awaiting a response.
Request for Donors
Donations will be welcome.
They will contribute to travel expenses in order to correlate the ideas expressed by Abiodun and Lawal with first hand encounters with various aesthetic contexts, from visual and performative arts to natural forms, along with facilitating access to libraries and books.
The following blog link provides guidance for donors- Rowland Abiodun and Babatunde Lawal, Philosophers of Yoruba Art.
Work in Action on the Project
The initial stages of this project are represented by the following initiatives:
''Explorations in Aesthetics: Outward and Inward Vision: Yoruba Aesthetics in a Multicultural Context'' (essay)
Exploring Rowland Abiodun Philosopher of Yoruba Art ( website)
Previous Work of Mine on Babatunde Lawal and Rowland Abiodun
Previous Work of Mine on Babatunde Lawal and Rowland Abiodun
Earlier work of mine on Abiodun and Lawal is represented by:
An overview of Lawal's work, correlating it with the philosophy, spirituality and art of the Yoruba origin Earth and humanity centred Ogboni esoteric order.
A comparative exploration of three Yoruba cosmogonic narratives, enriched by a broad range of art from different parts of the world, images reinforced by correlative commentary by myself.
The essay was inspired by reading the first part of the first chapter of Abiodun's Yoruba Art and Language.
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