Sola Olorunyomi

Visited the IAS from October to November 2024

I am Sola Olorunyomi, and have been working consistently for three and half decades on the comparative literatures of global Africanity and the emergent media of its transformation in dissemination. And so, last October 2024, we walked through a town and a street we had never been to before to arrive at a house we had known but had equally never visited, Iwalewa-Haus in Bayreuth. Our arrival at Iwalewa-Haus was magical in a sense, but that is if one discounts the capacity of memory, the photographic memory that we carried from home, Nigeria, for this two-month visit until November. The gangling and amiable Dr Malik Faye we had met for less than a minute because of his crammed schedule at a conference earlier over the weekend, and tried as he did to explain our way there, departing guests tugged him from all over for one or the other information, and we had to understandably excuse him to attend to the departing scholars. But as he had arranged, we found our space on the third floor, Room 12, being one of the reserved office facilities for researchers from our host Institute of African Studies, University of Bayreuth.

The facilities on our floor were just ideal for the researcher: comfortable table and table expansive enough to support your assortment of books, maps, manuscripts and fittings to plug in your electrical and electronic gadgets. Just adjacent to the room by meandering a little bend on the same floor were about two convenience rooms, then the coffee room and kitchen, and so were also the audio and visual rooms. I took great delight in joining my colleague, Professor Kayode Samuel, in listening to some of the archival recordings of the musicologist and composer Akin Euba, which were made available by Mr Regis. Our team had the privilege of hosting a talk of both Professor Afiz Oladosu from the same home University of Ibadan, and Professor Dr. Ruediger Seesemann, the dean of Humanities at Bayreuth. Locked up in your office, the building could almost pass off as a deserted space, but the ground floor dispels this assumption. Here is indeed home to many exhibitions, recitals, musicals, and presentations. Yet it was from my Room 12 that I necessarily put my papers together for presentation back on campus at the university.

My seminar presentation took place Tuesday, the 12th of November 2024, at 2:15 pm, at the University of Bayreuth, Building GW I, Room S 93. Find below a summary of its overall direction and suggestions.