Toyin Falola, Ph.D., is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is regarded as Africa’s most decorated scholars in the Humanities, and the continent’s most preeminent historian.
He is the author of numerous books and essays. He is the Series Editor of Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, Series Editor of the Culture and Customs of Africa by Greenwood Press, Series Editor of Classic Authors and Texts on Africa by Africa World Press, Series Editor of Carolina Studies on Africa and the Black World, Series Editor of African History and Modernity by Palgrave-Macmillan, and Series Editor of African Identities by Cambridge University Press.
He has received various awards and honors at the University of Texas at Austin, including the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, The Texas Exes Teaching Award, the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, and the Career Research Excellence Award. He served as the Chair of the ASA Herskovits Prize for the best book on Africa, the chair of the M. Klein Book prize for the best book on African history (American Historical Association), and the Joel Gregory Prize for the Canadian Association of African Studies. He is the current Vice President of the International Scientific Committee, UNESCO Slave Route Project and the President-Elect of the African Studies Association.
He has received 28 honorary doctorates, most recently from the University of the Free State, University of Pretoria, and University of the North West. An annual conference has been named after him: TOFAC (Toyin Falola Annual Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora. The Association of Third World Studies has named its annual best book after him as the Toyin Falola Prize for the best book on Africa.
His life time career awards include the Nigerian Diaspora Academic Prize, the Felix E. Udogu Africa Award, the Cheikh Anta Diop Award, the Amistad Award, and the SIRAS Award for Outstanding Contribution to African Studies, Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award (Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis, October 31, 2009), Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria, and Distinguished Africanist Award (by ASA), and Member of the Order of the Niger by the federal government of Nigeria.
In addition, he was the recipient of the Cecil B Currey Award for his book, Economic Reforms and Modernization in Nigeria, the Herskovits’ finalist award for A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt, the Nigerian Studies Association’s Best Book Award for Colonialism and Violence in Nigeria, and the Conover-Porter’s Finalist Certificate for Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide.
For his distinguished contribution to the study of Africa, his students and colleagues have presented him with a set five Festschriften, 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, one by Akin Ogundiran, Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, another by Akin Alao, and the most recent by Nana Amponsah, Beyond the Boundaries: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola. A critical appraisal, Toyin Falola: The Man, Mask and Muse, presents bio-critical studies in a thousand pages.
His first memoir, A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt, captures his childhood and has received various awards. The second memoir, Counting the Tiger’s Teeth, covers his years as a teenager. A third memoir, Malaika and the Seven Heavens narrates his encounters with Islam.
The University of Texas at Austin History Dept 1
128 Inner Campus Drive, Stop B7000 • Austin, Texas 78712-1739 • 512-475-7224 • FAX 512-475-7222
toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu