Olufemi Vaughan - His Work and His Words in His Voice . . .

[Michael Afolayan]

Colleagues and friends:

 

Kindly find below two related links. The first announces the latest book by Dr. Olufemi Vaughan, Religion and the Making of Nigeria (Duke University Press).  I have pasted the description of the book below. The second link is the video of an intriguing interview of Vaughan by Olakunle Kasumu of the Channels Book Club, in which the interviewer focuses on the new work. Olufemi Vaughan, the former Geoffrey Canada Professor of Africana Studies and History at Bowdoin College is now the Alfred Sargent Lee & Mary Ames Lee Professor of African Studies at Amherst College, Amherst, MA. Please enjoy the three short video interviews of the captivating (and smooth) mega-scholar, Olufemi Vaughan.

 

https://www.dukeupress.edu/religion-and-the-making-of-nigeria

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79Ve_YMKKU&list=PLl6IvhbhEqwxvAYOkZB8lzwQTILBojTG7&index=1

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Description

In Religion and the Making of Nigeria, Olufemi Vaughan examines how Christian, Muslim, and indigenous religious structures have provided the essential social and ideological frameworks for the construction of contemporary Nigeria. Using a wealth of archival sources and extensive Africanist scholarship, Vaughan traces Nigeria’s social, religious, and political history from the early nineteenth century to the present. During the nineteenth century, the historic Sokoto Jihad in today’s northern Nigeria and the Christian missionary movement in what is now southwestern Nigeria provided the frameworks for ethno-religious divisions in colonial society. Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, Christian-Muslim tensions became manifest in regional and religious conflicts over the expansion of sharia, in fierce competition among political elites for state power, and in the rise of Boko Haram. These tensions are not simply conflicts over religious beliefs, ethnicity, and regionalism; they represent structural imbalances founded on the religious divisions forged under colonial rule.

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Happy new week, folks!

 

Michael O. Afolayan