Birks Annual Lecture Series: In the Twilight of Time: Chief Lóògò Bámátùlá: A Biography of an African Medicine Man

Birks Annual Lecture Series

In the Twilight of Time: Chief Lóògò Bámátùlá: A Biography of an African Medicine Man

Guest Speaker: Prof Jacob Olupona

About the Speaker:

Prof. Jacob K. Olupona is the Hugh K Foster Professor of African and African American Studies and Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies (AAAS) at Harvard University. He is the world’s leading scholar in the field of African religion and holds a joint appointment at the Harvard Divinity School. He spent several years as the director of graduate study for AAAS and has directly taught or mentored most scholars of religion in Africa—including Prof. Ayodeji Ogunnaike here at McGill. He also founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Ile-Ife, Nigeria whose mission is to reform and elevate the academy in Africa, and he has extensive experience working in and with the academy in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In addition to his research and publication awards, he was also awarded the Mendehlson Award for graduate advising from Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and will be available to discuss topics from navigating the job market, publications, career trajectories, international research, the human side of Academia, and more.

Abstract:

Chief Loogo, an over 100-year-old traditional medicine man from Ile-Oluji, Nigeria, has lived a remarkable life rooted in indigenous Yoruba traditions of harnessing cosmic power across practically every sphere of life from health and medicine, religion, politics, and even warfare. Drawing from his recently published book of the same title, Prof. Jacob K. Olupona offers a biographical sketch of Chief Loogo to present a series of theses on issues of indigenous and modern, Western education, indigenous knowledge systems, and the issue of conversion as Chief Loogo became a Christian late in life, although he has never ceased practicing traditional medicine. The talk places Chief Loogo’s remarkable life in the context of the rapidly changing social and religious landscape of colonial and postcolonial Africa and offers reflections on the place and future of the type of knowledge embodied by this remarkable man.