AUSTIN, Texas—Dr. Toyin Falola, a professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL) for his contribution to Nigerian history.
Falola is the Frances Higginbothom Nalle Centennial Professor in History in the College of Liberal Arts and has published more than 50 volumes relating to Nigerian and African history. His work includes “Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies” and “Nationalism and African Intellectual.” Falola is also the co-editor of the Journal of African Economic History, series editor of Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, series editor of the Culture and Customs of Africa by Greenwood Press and series editor of Classic Authors and Texts on Africa by Africa World Press.
Falola has received numerous teaching awards and honors, most recently the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, the Texas Exes Teaching Award, the Chancellor’sCouncil Outstanding Teaching Award, the Ibn Khaldun Distinguished Award for ResearchExcellence and the Nelson Mandela Professorship. For his distinguished contributionto the study of Africa, his students and colleagues have presented him with “TheTransformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola” and “TheFoundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola,” edited by AdebayoOyebade.
The NAL is the national academy for the humanities and social sciences, founded to give recognition to excellence and represent the interests of scholarship nationally and internationally. While it has the support of the federal government, the NAL is an independent, self-governing fellowship of the country’s most talented scholars. Fellows of the academy must have contributed original research of the highest order, and their impact on scholarship and society must be imaginative, creative and unique. One fellow is selected each year, with an investiture on the second Thursday of August.
Falola will join other Fellows in meeting the objectives of the academy to create a national forum for the coordination of efforts of learned societies in the area of the arts; to promote advanced scholarship and research at the highest levels; to influence the formulation of policies affecting the development of the arts; and to cooperate with similar bodies in the promotion of overall national interests. Others are to encourage and undertake various publications, including books, monographs, journals, bulletins and newsletters; to support the general development of the creative arts; and to undertake activities that promote the broad objectives of the academy without discrimination on grounds of sex or creed.
For more information contact: Dr. Toyin Falola, 512-475-7224.
