Professor Olutayo Charles Adesina is the current Head, Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Between 2015 and 2018, he was Director, Centre for General Studies, University of Ibadan. Prof. Adesina has carved a niche for himself as a scholar and historian. In 1994, he was a Grantee of the United States Information Agency at the Boston College, Massachusetts, U.S.A. In 1998, he was invited by Prof. Akin Mabogunje, a distinguished scholar and Geographer to a Research Associateship at the Development Policy Centre, Ibadan. In 2008, he was Guest Editor, Journal of Global Initiatives (Special Edition on Globalization and the Unending Frontier, Vol.3 No.2, 2008), Institute for Global Initiatives, Kennesaw State University, Georgia, U.S.A. In 2009, he served as a member of the Committee of Experts of the Department of National Archives of Nigeria to the House of Representatives, Abuja, Nigeria on the ‘Public Hearing on a Bill for An Act to Repeal the National Archives Act, 1992 and to Establish the National Archives and Records Administration.’ Between 2009 and 2011, he also served creditably as a member of the Committee of Experts to set up the new Faculty of Arts (now College of Liberal Studies), Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria. Since 2008, he has been a Resource Person/International Panel of Scholars working with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in New York to assess applications for the African Humanities Program fellowship.
Prof. Adesina is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL), the apex organisation of humanistic scholars in Nigeria. He has been a recipient of several other distinguished visiting Fellowship Awards, including the Fellowship of Salzburg Seminar, Austria; Atlantic History Seminar, Charles Warren Center, Harvard University; the African Visiting Fellow, Rhodes Chair of Race Relations, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, U.K.; and, Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, USA. In October 2019, Prof. Adesina was the Distinguished Visiting Guest Lecturer at the Centre for African Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China. His publications include: Nigeria in the Twentieth Century: History, Governance and Society, Ibadan, Connel Publications, 2017; “Soccer Victory authorized by the gods: Prophecy, Popular Memory and the Peculiarities of Place”, In Afe Adogame, Nick Watson and Andrew Parker, Global Perspectives on Sports and Christianity, London and New York, Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2018; “Feeding the Millions: Understanding Africa’s Food Security Problem” In Richard A. Olaniyan and Ehimika A. Ifidon (eds), Contemporary Issues in Africa’s Development: Wither the African Renaissance? Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge scholars Publishing, 2018. His most recent publication is: “A Terrain…Angels Would Fear to Tread”: Biographies and History in Nigeria”, Southern Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 45 No. 1, June 2020. Prof. Adesina is the current Editor of Africa Review, an interdisciplinary academic journal published by Taylor and Francis, London. He is currently completing (with Prof Taiwo Akinyele, Head of the Department of History, University of Lagos) a manuscript on Larger than Life: Selected Icons in Yoruba Thought and Society.