Transforming Self, Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development : Webinar Announcement

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

                                                               Transforming Self, Unlocking Genius

                                                    The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development 

                                                                              Webinar Announcement

                                                                             Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

This webinar takes the work of one of the world's greatest scholars beyond theory, exploring how to adapt, in one's life, the phenomenal creativity of this polymath.

The seminar deploys ideas of the intersection between individuality and multiplicity, between fate and free will in demonstrating how to unleash your own genius, like this man from the city of rust and gold, as the poet J.P., Clark describes the Nigerian city of Ibadan, has unleashed his.

Great ideas of human possibility emerge from the intersection between Falola's monumental celebration of creative genius of various individuals,  In Praise of Greatness: the Politics of African Adulation and African origin ideas of human being and becoming.

We shall examine how to adapt, in our own lives,  the achievements of a person comparable to the greatest polymaths in history but closer to contemporary reality than Leonardo da Vinci, painter, sculptor, scientific draughtsman and engineer, Aristotle, creator of the foundations of the Western educational system across disciplines, Ibn Sina, philosopher and pioneer in  medical research  and Setilu, synthesizer of mathematics, literature, herbalogy, philosophy, spirituality and art  in the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge.

Unlock the genius within you by studying and applying principles of self understanding, locating yourself at the intersection of past, present, future and eternity, navigating possibilities beyond the shell your life might have become, cracking open the kernel of possibility to reveal your luminosity.

''When a person says ''yes'', their innermost self, anchored in ultimate possibility, says ''yes!'' as the Igbo state.

Learn to say ''yes!'' to the dragon that wishes to rise within you, flying towards the stars.

The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development is a system of growth developed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, organised around a study of the achievements of polymathic scholar Toyin Falola. 

This introductory seminar will cost $5.

Get in touch to register at toyin....@gmail.com or on WhatsApp at 08051439554.

[Michael Afolayan]

Toyin Adepoju,

I thought we already concluded a few months ago that this would not be a right channel for promoting TF's legacy. Falola's legacy already speaks for itself and some of his friends would be uncomfortable using his name to charge fellow academics to learn about him. 

Nothing personal. I'm worried about it sha; but the ball is in your court.

Michael O. Afoláyan

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Oga Afolayan,

I salute you. It's good to hear others' views on one's initiatives even when they disagree with one.

I have rethought the issue and chosen to proceed. I have described my motivations  in a follow up post to this group.

Is Falola's legacy speaking for itself  an adequate projection of that legacy? 

Does the legacy of a cultural creator, particularly, or even of all  kinds of creators, not need to be examined and foregrounded by other people, demonstrating the impact of that legacy beyond its creator, its immediate referents and originating contexts, and perhaps illuminating aspects of its significance  that even the creator might not have thought of?

The entire structure of scholarship, one approach to which is the development of new understanding of what is accessible to humanity, is based on that premise, hence the various books on Falola.

I am taking Falola scholarship from its accustomed cultural and referential parameters into asking questions about the creative processes at play in the creation of the Falola phenomenon, and exploring how these processes can be adapted by others in their own lives.

The artist and scientist  Leonardo da Vinci, the physicist Albert Einstein, among others, are the subject of countless efforts to understand the nature of creative genius, distilling   such understanding in a way that other people can learn from and possibly apply to themselves.

Why not Falola?

Must Falola discourse remain confined to abstract texts, rich as these are in grappling with the details and scope of his thought? Must it remain limited to discussions in rarefied scholarly books, priceless as these are but which most members of the public will not know about, talk less read?

Is his achievement not relevant to humanity as a whole and therefore worthy of, even vital, for general human understanding?

 After all, the creative multiplicity demonstrated by his achievement may be likened to the entrepreneurial and technological  multiplicity of an Elon Musk, one of the greatest technological entrepreneurs  of all time, founder of Space X, Tesla Motors and more, all initiatives founded on a basic nexus of orientation, suggesting these great creative multiplicities  may be seen as based on similar foundations.

My vision is that of taking the Falola legacy to the larger marketplace of ideas,where it may rub shoulders with the achievements of the Elon Musks, the da Vincis, the Einsteins, the Ibn Sinas, Ibn Arabis and other polymaths of the Persian/Arab worlds, demonstrating an achievement that resonates with the high point of conceptions of human possibility represented by the European Renaissance  vision of the Uomo Universali, the Universal Person, manifesting in their activity and self development the varied dynamisms of human possibility, as well as with Yoruba/African conceptions of self actualization within multiplicity of expression.

As for the idea of charging people money to learn about Falola, I need clarification about that discomfort.

Falola is an academic. Most of his friends are academics. Academics are people who work in an institution of leaning and are paid for their services.

Falola's books and books about Falola are not produced for free or distributed free most of the time, they are commercial initiatives which cost money to produce and which people and institutions buy.

Falola Studies is therefore part of an economic system of production, in which people are being charged to learn about and from Falola by buying his books and being taught by him, their economic contributions part of an economy empowering Falola to generate the knowledge and skill  vital to sustaining that economy.

Going beyond his current focus on more specific subjects in various disciplines, Falola may choose to teach people about ''techniques of creativity'', ''multidisciplinary productivity'' etc using his own experience as the foundation for such exploration, perhaps in dialogue with his rich explorations of other creatives in various essays, a good number of which are collected and framed by a  philosophical discussion in  his In Praise of Greatness.

The world would benefit from such efforts. He may choose to do it within the context of his academic job, as a course offering, as an elective or as a seminar, as I experienced with a writer teaching meditation as a route to creativity, among many other optional seminars at University College, London.

He could choose to do it outside his academic context, as Ato Quason is currently doing on YouTube with discussing criticism.

He could choose not to charge, as Quayson has so chosen, or he could choose to charge, as Margaret Atwood is doing with her virtual  seminars on art.

The global social system runs to a large extent on principles of exchange for goods and services and people have significant discretion as to how to  navigate this system.

Falola is not doing any of these and I am doing it in relation to his relentless productivity, sustained and ceaselessly expanding over decades.

Even if Falola does bring out such an initiative, mine will differ from his, because, I,  as the person looking at his work, am different from himself, examining his work from within his immersion in it,  and the references and styles of analysis we would use to demonstrate the larger significance of that work beyond its proximate referents  would not be identical.

Are those friends of Falola's  concerned that my using Falola's name in the initiative means suggesting Falola is my partner, has given his blessing or I am taking advantage of his name?

Falola's name has reached a level that it can be used by others. The resonance of the name has risen above the generality occupied by most of humanity, whose names, strategic as they are as markers of individuality, demonstrate varied levels of resonance, of different kinds of force within and beyond those directly acquainted with them.

Just like we name theories in terms of the names of those who construct them, or who inspire them, we can do the same for Falola. How ethical is this use, becomes the question.

I believe I have established my parameters for drawing my conclusions about what one may learn about Falola's creativity. My various writings on Falola, of which more are forthcoming, in the context of my published explorations on various philosophies, creativities  and creative individuals,  makes clear my cognitive enablement  for this activity.

I also want to move Falola scholarship from being limited to being part of academic offerings, such as a list of books on a reading list, to a stand alone yet multidisciplinarily integrative subject of study,  a multidisciplinary complex of explorations of different subjects unified round a multiplicity of centres represented by forms of creativity, engaging these within a pedagogical context involving direct contact with people beyond such conferences as the Falola conferences, vital landmarks in Falola scholarship though they are.

How do we move from what has been written on Falola, from conference discussions of Falola's work,  to studying this work  in a pedagogical context?

Is Falola's oeuvre expansive enough to sustain or act as the inspirational matrix for  a critical examination of approaches to various questions in various disciplines, examining how these diversities may be engaged with simultaneously  from various disciplinary orientations, the entirety grounded in examinations of individual and group efforts to shape meaning out of reality, as described by Falola in In Praise of Greatness and as I highlight in a forthcoming essay on that book in relation to Yoruba theories of self and circumstance, free will and fate?

I am interested in contributing to shaping an approach to Falola Studies that includes and goes beyond books and conferences on Falola's work to courses on this work, developing a structure of learning that includes and goes beyond the more general concerns of his scholarship to examining their emergence from the cognitive dynamism of a creative persona whose creativity may be explored by others and adapted to one's use.

 

Great thanks

toyin

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

My own objection still persists.  If he wants to analyse Toyin Falola paradigm let him be clear about that and if he wants to analyse Toyin Adepoju paradigm let him be clear.  Both are not in the same category.

When Bangura wrote about Falolaism he did not call it FalolaBanguraism.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 10/09/2020 04:27 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>, Bring Your Baseball Bat <naijao...@yahoogroups.com>, Talkhard <talk...@yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Transforming Self, Unlocking Genius:The  Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development : Webinar Announcement

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Toyin Adepoju,

I thought we already concluded a few months ago that this would not be a right channel for promoting TF's legacy. Falola's legacy already speaks for itself and some of his friends would be uncomfortable using his name to charge fellow academics to learn about him. 

Nothing personal. I'm worried about it sha; but the ball is in your court.

Michael O. Afoláyan

On Friday, September 4, 2020, 6:47:35 AM EDT, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Gloria Emeagwali]

 Why do you call it the Falola - Adepoju paradigm and not the Falola paradigm?

GE

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

I am creating a pardgm from studying Falola.

Falola-the matrix

Adepoju-the transformer of the matrix

i am adepoju not bangura

to each his own

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

edited

I am creating a paradigm of human development from studying Falola.

Falola-the matrix

Adepoju-the transformer of the matrix

i am adepoju not bangura

to each his own

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

thanks

bcs i am the one constructing it, not falola

but the constructing comes from studying  falola

without falola, no paradigm

the perception of such a paradigm out of decades of falola's work in various disciplines represents what is known in yoruba and kalabari epistemologies, the latter as discussed by nimi wariboko in various works, as the ability to perceive essence within phenomena, to constellate breadth of significance in relation to a nucleus of value or reference

falola's work is the flame

i am acquainted with the work of a good no of creatives from africa, the west and asia.

falola's example alone inspires in me the idea of developing the kind of synthesis i am constructing

my sensitivities to individual creativity and value have been honed from studying and writing about creatives and even working with spiritualities based on particular personalities.

these orientations help me cultivate the penetrative and  integrative perceptions described earlier that enable me to map a network of creative dynamisms from studying falola's cv, reading his work and interacting with him, in alignment with my own struggles in developing my own creativity 

thanks

toyin

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[Michael Afolayan]

"My vision is that of taking the Falola legacy to the larger marketplace of ideas,where it may rub shoulders with the achievements of the Elon Musks, the da Vincis, the Einsteins, the Ibn Sinas, Ibn Arabis and other polymaths of the Persian/Arab worlds, demonstrating an achievement that resonates with the high point of conceptions of human possibility represented by the European Renaissance  vision of the Uomo Universali, the Universal Person, manifesting in their activity and self development the varied dynamisms of human possibility, as well as with Yoruba/African conceptions of self actualization within multiplicity of expression."

Oh no, the lion does not have to align with the eagles; they don't have to rub shoulders with each other! They are powerful species of different creations, and creatures of different configurations. They operate on different plains. Period!

Anyway, if you are sure it's okay with TF, let the music play on.

MOA

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Toyin Adepiju.

Words, words words!

Everything you have said in this long piece refers to A Falola paradigm and not a Falola/ Adepoju paradigm.

Others might just simply see you as a fawner others a parasite!

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Date: 10/09/2020 16:04 (GMT+00:00)

To: Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>

Cc: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>, Bring Your Baseball Bat <naijao...@yahoogroups.com>, Talkhard <talk...@yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TransformingSelf,  Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development :Webinar Announcement

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[Adeshina Afolayan]

Oga Toyin,

I salute you. I am aware of your scholarship, the great expositions you do on behalf of, especially, the Yoruba culture. I have equally read all your exposition of TF's work. What you are doing is similar to Bangura's work. Bangura has developed what he called Falolaism, without any attempt at adding his name to that theoretical framework. I am as confused as others as to why you need to have a Falola-Adepoju paradigm when all you're doing is annotating Falola's oeuvre. Saying "Falola-Adepoju paradigm" assumes a lot. For one, it signifies that such a paradigm could not have come to light without the conscious collaboration of the two sides of the hyphen. I wonder if this is really so. Just like you conceded, the paradigm is Falola's. So, what is your name doing riding alongside it, as if both of you bear equal responsibility for developing what you agreed is already developed?   

This goes beyond the pale of methodology into that of ethics. It is like riding on the achievements of someone and ascribing those achievements to oneself. And you're charging $5 for participation! In other words, you are about to start making money on what you did not help develop, but only annotating. On the street of Ibadan right now, you see so many guys selling artistic works, the intellectual properties of some. We could also argue that they are promoting these works--and pocketing the proceeds!

For decency sake, you really should drop your name from the said paradigm and keep doing the great thing you're doing. We cannot expect TF to weigh in on this issue. And those who have weighed in are doing so from their reading of that hyphen between the two names. Something is significantly wrong in hitching your name to it. There are people who have done great expostulations of the works of the great intellectuals of the world. They do not add their name to what they are expostulating. You are of course familiar with neoplatonism, and the great work that Plotinus did in recreating Plato's philosophy. Yet, we did not read about Plato-Plotinus philosophy or paradigm in that trajectory of philosophical reconstruction. I am not sure we can even elevate your effort to that level. And yet, we have what we have.  

And i wonder whether TF requires raising his name to the level of Da Vinci and Einstein that you referenced. The Falola legacy is already spread as wide as possible. And a lot of people are engaging it at a most critical level. 

   

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Really?

''Oh no, the lion does not have to align with the eagles; they don't have to rub shoulders with each other! They are powerful species of different creations, and creatures of different configurations. They operate on different plains. Period!''

All the examples I gave are people whose work is based on creativity expressed in intellectual and/or imaginative terms.

That correlation at the level of primary human cognitive forms alings them at a deep level.

I could add other kinds of creativities at the cost of exploring how they cohere at the level of innovation.

Creativity is the fundamental quality that enables the human race survive and thrive, from the days of learning to make fire, leading to the cooking of food, moving humanity away from their more animal lifestyles to increasingly more refined forms of energy generation, to developing agriculture, thereby moving from a hunter gatherer existence to settled communities enabling the development of leisure, concentration and specialization that creates high culture, from the sciences to the art.

How can I do this differently and perhaps in a better and possibly more efficient way than it has been done before? 

Or, how can I do this which has never been done before?

These are the fundamental human drives that link the first maker of fire to the developers of nuclear energy, the prehistoric artists of the French caves at Lascaux and the Blombos caves in South Africa  to  the frescoes of Leonardo da Vinci and the constructs of Nigeria's Bruce Onobrakpeya.

The animal imagery of the lion and the eagle may be seen as subverted in this context by the human creativity enabling greater choice in relation to nature.

Thus, I am interested in understanding the conjunctions between various ways of doing things differently, or bringing into existence what does not exist.

I am also anxious to advance the visibility of African thinkers beyond specialised, often academic contexts.

We need their visibility as people others can look up to.

thanks

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

na you know, as its said in pidgin english, oga agbetuyi.

you may direct your condemnation to the industry of texts celebrating and distilling the genius of the likes of leonardo da vinci and albert einstein, while you, faced by your fellow african demonstration of genius, are happy to dance as you are doing on usaafrica.

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Thanks Adeshina.

May I be worthy.

On the paradigm in question, the paradigm is not Falola's.

It is developed by Adepoju from studying the work of Falola.

There is nowhere in his hundreds of publications where Falola explicitly describes or even alludes to such a paradigm as I am developing.

I am not even referring to Falola's ideas per se, but to deductions I have made from studying his creativity.

 My discussions of his ideas would be based on my observations of his personal creative culture.

 Even then, those discussions would not be annotations but reconfigurations, transforming the given into something new.

So, oga Adeshina, I am not annotating Falola.

There is no writing of mine that simply annotates  Falola. 

My writings interpret and reconfigure Falola's work, at times taking it beyond its own universe of reference to locate it in relation to broader coordinates.

The paradigm I reference at best draws from what you have read of my work on Falola but is not subsumed by what you have read so far.

I am constructing a vision of human development inspired by the work of Falola and even going beyond that work. 

Without Bangura and Falola as distinctive correlates, Bangura's books on Falola and the Falola interpretations in those books won't exist. Same with Plotinus, Plato and Neoplatonism. Bangura and Plotinus  would have been within their rights to add their names to the constructs they perceived and reshaped. You are aware of course, that neither Bangura nor Plotinus is simply restating Falola or Plato, they interpret and rework what they have read.

Falola expositors may choose whatever levels of identification they choose.

My own universe of the greatest human achievements is framed by such people as Leonardo da Vinci and Aristotle, Ibn Sina and Ibn Arabi. Einstein features at the level of reconstituting understanding of the physical structure of the cosmos. 

I think the work of a person able to engage in depth with all aspects of African Studies should be studied in terms of its contributions to understanding the character of reality in a manner that is universally relevant, not only reality as seen by people from a particular continent, while giving allowance to the contextualities involved  in framing reality.

I am also inspired by the Abiola Irele, Nimi Wariboko, Rowland Abiodun, Babatunde Lawal, Olabiyi Yai nexus of African scholarship.

I am locating Falola's achievement within this nexus of the proximate and the other not so close but correlative constellation of masters. 

Those who wish to interpret Falola in terms of other universes of achievement are free to do theirs. I am keen on such trans-historical and intercontinental coordination.

I am also inspired by the scope of the manner in which the West promotes its creatives. There exist all kinds of books on Aristotle, Plato etc-children's books, mid level books, various kinds of products etc. Through such means, these figures penetrate deeply into the collective imagination. 

African creatives outside literature and film, on the contrary,   remain at the level of high scholarship.

Even at that level, how many Nigerian students know about Toyin Falola, the way people used to know of Ade Ajayi and Kenneth Dike of the famous Ibadan History School , whom I have never read but whose names I know?

Having spent more than a decade in Nigerian university education, I never came across Falola's name until I encountered it in the SOAS, University of London  library in 2004, where I saw the same name recurring across various disciplinary sections of the library. 

There is actually a lot at stake in this issue. Beyond Adepoju hitching his name to that of Falola or Adepoju's $5. 

It would be good to have you paying the $5 and coming to see what Adepoju is really saying.

Truth is, I can construct an entire university system based on or inspired by  Falola's work, whether or not I add my name to the pedagogical process  so developed and people will gladly pay well to attend. 

Such efforts, seminar, course or university as I propose, are different from regurgitating Falola or annotating Falola, regurgitation being the effort that aligns with your example of those selling prints of others art.

What is being described here is reconfiguration, the creation of a complex from foundations visible within the emergent superstructure. 

thanks

toyin

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Leonardo da Vinci et al were celebrated to the level they are now ex- post- facto.  It is the manner of the celebration that matters.   Sigmund Freud lamented after the 15th edition of his land mark The Interpretation of Dreams that it did not receive the reception he had hoped it would.  ( This was why Biko Agozino once accused me of celebrating only dead Igbo- Okigbo- and not living ones) Other members of the forum appreciate the work of Falola perhaps far more than you may ever do.

Now if we go ahead and turn ourselves to a rubber stamp for cult personality worship of choir boys and girls on the forum as your move suggests in part we may be doing the greatest damage to the image of the referent than you may realise.

If say you are doing this work totally independent of this forum( perhaps on your facebook website)  to which the referent is not signatory and moderator that would appear more decent and more critical and helpful independent comment would follow from seasoned scholars who understand what a paradigm entails.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Date: 10/09/2020 21:08 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -TransformingSelf,  Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of HumanDevelopment :Webinar Announcement

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na you know, as its said in pidgin english, oga agbetuyi.

you may direct your condemnation to the industry of texts celebrating and distilling the genius of the likes of leonardo da vinci and albert einstein, while you, faced by your fellow african demonstration of genius, are happy to dance as you are doing on usaafrica.

toyin

On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 at 20:45, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Thanks, OAA.

I'm doing it where and how I like.

People are free to attach what meanings they like.

Those who see a celebration of historic genius and an effort to study and adapt it to oneself as a cult of personality worship are free to hold their views.

Everyone is welcome to their own kind of appreciation of others.

Some wish to see things always done in the way they are familiar with.

Why should a scholar not remain at the level of high scholarship, they would question.

Why reference to genius and even trying to seemingly package this genius for consumer consumption, they would hold.

We Africans might need to learn better the culture of mutual and self promotion. 

The claims you are  making about the celebration of those people after they lived is not factual. The Renaissance masters Leonardo, da Vinci and Raphael as well as the 20th century scientist Einstein were already famous in their lives.

That of Freud took some time bcs of the radical character of his ideas. But he got there eventually. 

thanks

toyin

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

          

 Speaking about Leonardo da Vinci, the drawings he claimed  as  his  own, came from China.

  He copied them from  Francesco di Georgio who copied it  from Leonardo  di Taccola of Florence,

says  Gavin Menzies., who passed away a few months ago.

Leonardo di Taccola produced De Ingenis, in  four volumes,

 illustrating pumps, bellows, mills,  armored ships, machines and so on that  were

 drawings from the  encyclopedic  masterpiece called  the  "Nong Shu," (Nung Shu)

authored by  the inventor Wang Zhen in China in 1313.

The "Nong Shu"~~~~ Taccola ~~~~~Di Georgio ~~~~~Leonardo da Vinci.

Menzies  makes this argument in:

"1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet  sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance." 

Harper Collins, 2008

In any case, the text is a good reminder that the Chinese were the first to make   machine  guns, bombs, grenades,

printed books, rocket launchers,  cannons, blast furnace technology - in addition to

the mechanical gadgets copied from the "Nung Shu" - and  illustrated a  century later by Da Vinci.

Needless to say that Da Vinci remains one of the world's greatest painters.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net

http://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html

Chief Editor- "Africa Update"

www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries

2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies

 University of Texas at Austin

2019   Distinguished Africanist Award                   

New York African Studies Association

 

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2020 5:10 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -TransformingSelf, Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of HumanDevelopment :Webinar Announcement

 

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

do menzies's claims go uncontested, gloria? i taught medieval humanities many many years ago. lynn white wrote a book on the technology of that period; a brilliant book. the one thing i learned, indubitably, besides the details, was the our knowledge is based to a larger extend on the acquisition of knowledge from elsewhere than from our own cultures. in other words, people are always in touch with people, and gradually what one people does/knows gets spread to another. an amazing process.

much technology from china had spread to w europe by the medieval period, like gunpower. the chinese didn't use it as a weapon, but it was readapted as such and ultimately ended the medieval feudal power of feudal knights and all.

the stirrup was another invention that spread and changed the shape of warfare so that horseman became dominant over foot soldiers. the heavy plow changed agriculture, and so on.

every change in technology changed the world. i think of that when we track greek philosophy that was preserved by the arabs and carried across n africa up to spain and ultimately across much of europe. nothing stops the spread of knowledge of a technology...like the atom bomb.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2020 10:06 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

The claims that the Chinese reached America have been hotly contested but the references within to the Nung Shu and so on are not in that category. For years I  told students that the Chinese did not use gunpowder  as a weapon until I realized that they did- in the form of bombs and explosives etc. 

Ken, you seem to want to over generalize the issue. The reference is to China and Leonardo da Vinci and the West. The hit list from China is too long to be glossed over even when recognizing

spectacular contributions from elsewhere.  As they say,  give Jack his jacket.😎

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 Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 11:04 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -TransformingSelf, Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of HumanDevelopment :Webinar Announcement

 

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Wikipedia on Gavin Menzes

Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies (14 August 1937 – 12 April 2020)^[1][2][3] was a British author and retired submarine lieutenant-commander who has written books promoting claims that the Chinese sailed to America before Columbus. Historians have rejected Menzies' theories and assertions^{[4][5][6][7][8]} and have categorised his work as pseudohistory.^[9][10][11]

He was best known for his controversial book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, in which he asserts that the fleets of Chinese Admiral Zheng He visited the Americas prior to European explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492, and that the same fleet circumnavigated the globe a century before the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan. Menzies' second book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance extended his discovery hypothesis to the European continent. In his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, Menzies claims that Atlantis did exist, in the form of the Minoan Civilization, and that it maintained a global seaborne empire extending to the shores of America and India, millennia before actual contact in the Age of Discovery.

From Journal of World History

How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America Robert Finlay

Beautiful Menzes website 

From Columbia College of Arts and Sciences, with a rich discussion thread 

Is Gavin Menzies Right or Wrong? 

Menzies on Leonardo/Chinese correlations, from Menzies website

''Even the most devoted supporter of Leonardo (like my family and I!) must surely wonder whether his work’s amazing similarity to Chinese engineering could be the product of coincidence. Whether Leonardo appreciated it or not, he was surrounded by evidence of the Chinese impact on the Renaissance. However, that is a far cry from claiming that Leonardo copied existing Chinese inventions. One thing we can be sure of, Leonardo did not meet anyone from Zheng He’s fleets when they visited Florence in 1434. So it appeared the similarities noted above were due to an extraordinary series of coincidences.''

Reuters Summation of Menzies Leonardo Thesis and  Compilation of Responses from Leonardo Science/Art Scholar Martin Kemp and  History Scholars  

                                 Columbus debunker sets sights on Leonardo da Vinci

 

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[Gloria Emeagwali]

Gavin Menzies starts off his book 

”1434 ” with a query:  How do you 

discover a place for which there is

already a map? Well  many of us

have always asked the same

question - but relating it to the

fact that people were already

living in the Americas before

Columbus’ invasion/arrival.

I happened to have extracts 

from Columbus’Log book in my

library and  decided to cross check.

Yep. Columbus actually speaks of a 

map in his logbook.  

That is how you read Menzies.

 Cross check his references and 

the argument.  For example,

check  the drawings by 

Leonardo da Vinci and examine

the drawings in the 1313 Nung Shu

for yourself- especially if you love

Leonardo da Vinci to death.

Yale has a copy that I plan to look 

at for the heck of it.

 Students in my classes who use 

 Wikipedia get no credit for that  - 

but I  tell them to appreciate the 

illustrations and pursue some of 

the references, and make sure 

that they consult non-Eurocentric

 sources as well.

Menzies also cites the

” Yongle Dadian”

of 1421 and the “ Wu- Ching 

Tsung-Yao” with respect to 

accumulated knowledge that

 influenced the WEST. 

Joseph Needham would have made

reference to these in his 

monumental work on China - 

Independent of Menzies.

Why am I interested in all this?

WelI   I teach World Civ. too.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali

emea...@ccsu.edu

On Sep 11, 2020, at 18:11, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:



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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Toyin Adepoju. ( at the end of successfully pulling this off you will be truly Oga Adepoju as Agbetuyi will be when the literary translation world fully  accepts his two invented  unique literary translation measuring devices the transloscope and the fractional  transloscope.) there was an epigram I read in graduate school to the effect ' research is what I am engaged in when I dont know where I am going.' 

 I first thought, ' wait a minute, this is odd,' but on further thought I realised if you had all the answers to what you are researching in the first place, what then are you researching ( which makes nonsense of much formalised research proposals.)  The certitude involved in the proposed 'paradigm' seems to fall into this category.  

Now your responses have indicated this is an Adepoju gambit no matter the outcome. ( This is one of the advantages of having a forum with a star studded cast of academics- incisive  probing.) 

Proposals such as yours  is no crime in the academic world except that the title is ambiguously misleading.  I was about to suggest you first publish an Adepoju paradigm with a fine tuned title before going a further step on to Falola- Adepoju.  But you seem to have realised this lapse. People so inclined are free to spend their money however they wish.  

At least it is a welcome departure from demonising the elusive Fulani herdsman.

Best wishes...

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Date: 10/09/2020 20:52 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TransformingSelf,  Unlocking Genius: The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development :Webinar Announcement

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Really?

''Oh no, the lion does not have to align with the eagles; they don't have to rub shoulders with each other! They are powerful species of different creations, and creatures of different configurations. They operate on different plains. Period!''

All the examples I gave are people whose work is based on creativity expressed in intellectual and/or imaginative terms.

That correlation at the level of primary human cognitive forms alings them at a deep level.

I could add other kinds of creativities at the cost of exploring how they cohere at the level of innovation.

Creativity is the fundamental quality that enables the human race survive and thrive, from the days of learning to make fire, leading to the cooking of food, moving humanity away from their more animal lifestyles to increasingly more refined forms of energy generation, to developing agriculture, thereby moving from a hunter gatherer existence to settled communities enabling the development of leisure, concentration and specialization that creates high culture, from the sciences to the art.

How can I do this differently and perhaps in a better and possibly more efficient way than it has been done before? 

Or, how can I do this which has never been done before?

These are the fundamental human drives that link the first maker of fire to the developers of nuclear energy, the prehistoric artists of the French caves at Lascaux and the Blombos caves in South Africa  to  the frescoes of Leonardo da Vinci and the constructs of Nigeria's Bruce Onobrakpeya.

The animal imagery of the lion and the eagle may be seen as subverted in this context by the human creativity enabling greater choice in relation to nature.

Thus, I am interested in understanding the conjunctions between various ways of doing things differently, or bringing into existence what does not exist.

I am also anxious to advance the visibility of African thinkers beyond specialised, often academic contexts.

We need their visibility as people others can look up to.

thanks

toyin

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[Gloria Emeagwali]

OAA, I agree with you with a minor modification.  I recommend to  Adepoju a two -step program. He should first do research and come up with the Falola paradigm. That is step one.

Then based on his findings and discoveries and insights, gained from that exercise, he

should then develop the Adepoju paradigm. That is step two.

GE

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Always interesting, OAA.

I salute you.

We shall soon be reading about the outline of the paradigm.

get your $5 ready.

its mouthwatering.

you'll want more.

meanwhile you can tell us about your transloscopes.  

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Thanks, Gloria.

But I already have the Falola/Adepoju Paradigm.

Here  is part of it.

The Falola/Adepoju Paradigm of Human Development is  a vision of human growth distilled by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from studying the work of the polymathic scholar, writer and scholarly institution builder Toyin Falola in relation to other ideas about human possibility.

It involves the development of sensorial, imaginative, intellectual and intuitive faculties organized around a vocational centre, ''vocational'' in this context referring to the idea of ''vocation'' as ''the orientation of a person's life and work in terms of their ultimate sense of mission'' as this term is defined by an edition of Websters' Third New International Dictionary of the English Language.

Toyin Falola's Works as Demonstrations of these Varied but Complementary Modes of Knowledge 

sensorial, imaginative, intellectual- music and art-Victor Ekpuk:Connecting Lines Across Space and Time and writings on music in USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group

imaginative, intellectual- poetry celebrating people,and reflecting upon the implications of this poetry, as in In Praise of Greatness  

intellectual-scholarly writing-works on various disciplines in African Studies

Using Falola's work as a template, understanding is developed  about the various ways the senses may be used as instruments of knowledge, understanding filtered through intellect, intuition and imagination, expressed through expressive forms that privilege each of these means of knowledge or integrate them, the entire ensemble unified  in terms of the  search for or construction of the self's ultimate purpose.

''Early  on in life resolved I would be an academic. I would not pursue money,'' Falola once stated to me in a conversation. How may one develop a sense of purpose that invokes the greatest powers of the self, actualizing the kind of fulfillment distinctive to each person?

Toyin Falola was trained as an academic historian, but, along with practicing the study of history in the academic sense, he engages in other kinds of history as well as the study of various disciplines,  writing in various expressive genres.

Is all activity not historical, developing through time, within the context of space?

The explorer of self and the larger world using this paradigm journeys backwards in time and imaginatively forwards into the future, the history of their own self and that of the world, trying to make sense of this personal and interpersonal continuum, and working out how best to shape this progression in a conscious manner rather than simply be shaped by it.

Various complementary paradigms indirectly or directly highlighted by Falola's work may be employed in guiding this quest. 

A   visual evocation of this quest is the constellation of the circle of eternity around the directionalities of past, present, future and the temporally undecided , as  the opon ifa visual symbol of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge related to Falola's foregrounding of Yoruba culture  in highlighting African creative possibilities.  

The eternal and the temporal, the infinite and the spatial are unified in opon ifa iconography through the indeterminate and the unanticipated, represented by a principle which is the subject of Toyin Falola's  Esu: Yoruba God, Power, and the Imaginative Frontiers.

The aspirant employing this paradigm explores the possibility of this intersection.

The seminar/workshop will expand on these ideas and explore how they may be used in exploring possibilities in one's life.

Following the introductory seminar, people will have the choice of participating in subsequent seminars that explore in detail how these approaches to knowledge may be adapted by each person.

People may also sign up for private  workshops.

Great thanks

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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