DISTINGUISHED HISTORIAN VISITS DEPARTMENT

Dr. Kenneth Ombongi, Chair of the Department, shared a moment with Prof. Toyin Falola, the celebrated historian at the University of Texas, USA, who is visiting the country at the moment on Friday, March 18, 2022. Prof. Falola was accompanied by Prof Maurice Amutabi of the Technical University of Kenya and Mickie Koster.

Dr. Kenneth Ombongi with the visiting scholars

Toyin Falola is the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, he is the author of numerous books, including Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide, Nationalism and African Intellectuals, and many edited books including Tradition and Change in Africa and African Writers and Readers. He is the co-editor of the Journal of African Economic History, Series Editor of Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, and the Series Editor of the Culture and Customs of Africa by Greenwood Press. He has received various awards and honors, including the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, the Texas Exes Teaching Award, and the Ibn Khaldun Distinguished Award for Research Excellence. For his singular and distinguished contribution to the study of Africa, his students and colleagues have presented him with three Festschrifts - two edited by Adebayo Oyebade, The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, and The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, and one edited by Akin Ogundiran, Pre-Colonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola. He has recently published an acclaimed memoir, A Mouth Sweeter than Salt: An African Memoir.