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Education Teaching Experience Languages Published Work 7200 College Station • BRUNSWICK • MAINE • 04011 PHONE : 207-721-5801 • E-MAIL : AOGUNNAI@BOWDOIN.EDU AYODEJI OGUNNAIKE Education • Harvard College: B.A. in African Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Cum Laude with a Language Citation in French. Thesis: “God, Gods, and Prophets: The Cosmology of Muslim Babalawo,” Magna Honors. • Traditional Herbalism/Divination Certification: From the High Priest of Ifa in ModaKeKe, Nigeria upon completion of a year’s training and observation (2011). • Harvard University: M.A. in Religious Studies (2015) and PhD in African Studies with distinction (2019). Supervised by Jacob Olupona (African Religions), Ousmane Kane (Islam in Africa), Olufemi Vaughan (Christianity in Africa), and Kimberly Patton (Comparative Religion) Teaching Experience Courses Taught at Harvard College as a Graduate Teaching Fellow: • Introduction to African Studies – Fall 2014 • African Religions – Fall 2014 • Belief, Culture, and Society in Francophone Africa – Study abroad course Summer 2015 • Introduction to African Languages and Cultures – Fall 2015 • Introduction to Vodou Religion and Epistemology (Course Head) – Spring 2016 Courses Taught at Bowdoin College: • Introduction to African Religions and Cultures - Fall 2019 • Deities in Motion: Afro-Diasporic Religions - Fall 2019, Spring 2021 • Introduction to Africana Studies - Spring 2020 • Telling Africana Stories - Spring 2020, Spring 2021 • Introduction to Africana Religions through Literature – Fall 2020 • Why Are You Here? Interpreting Humanity from Africana Perspectives – Fall 2020 Languages • French: Highly Proficient • Yoruba: Proficient • Portuguese: Intermediate • Wolof: Beginner • Spanish: Beginner • Standard & Classical (Fusha) Arabic: Advanced Published Work • “The Myth of Purity” in The Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Summer/Autumn 2013 (Vol. 41, Nos. 2 & 3) • “Oyinbo Ọmọ Aṣogun Dere: An analysis of racial injustice, gun violence, and sexual assault, in America through a traditional Yoruba perspective.” Journal of Interreligious Studies (2018) • “Mamalawo?: The Controversy over Women Practicing Ifa Divination” Journal of the African Association for the Study of Religion (2018) • “The Tree that Centers the World: The Palm Tree as Yoruba Axis Mundi” Africana Studies Review (2019) • “What’s Really Behind the Mask?: A re-examination of Syncretism in Brazilian Candomblé” Journal of Africana Religions (2020) • Review of African Sacred Spaces, The Journal of African History (2020) • “Bilad al-Brazil: The Importance of West African Scholars in Brazilian Islamic Education and Practice in Historic and Contemporary Perspective” in Religions (2021) • “Why Are Indigenous African and Afro-Diasporic Religions Relevant to You?” in Indigenous Religious Traditions in 5 Minutes (forthcoming) • “Precolonial Yoruba States” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (forthcoming) • “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t: The Paradox of Africana Religions’ Legal Status” in Journal of Africana Religions (forthcoming) • “Yoruba Tradition and Public Life: Yoruba Sacred Kings, Governance, and Religion” in Religion in the Public Sphere in African and the African Diaspora (forthcoming) • Ifa Digital Library and Archive – I am curating a digital library and archive of videos explaining each chapter of the Ifa corpus, including the myths, poems, sayings, songs, etc that are contained within them. Current worK includes translation into English and transcription of Yoruba. [http://ask-dl.fas.harvard.edu/odu- ifa] Work Under Review • “The Transcontinental Genealogy of the Afro-Brazilian Mosque” in Material and Visual Cultures of Religion Journal • “Ifa and Traditional Yoruba Interpretations of Christianity” in Topographies of African Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Prof. Jacob Olupona • “Intellectual Biography of Professor Jacob K. Olupona” in Topographies of African Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Prof. Jacob Olupona Work in Progress • Ogunnaike’s Book of Yoruba Myths and Legends – A children’s booK of major Yoruba myths drawn from material collected during the 2010-2011 academic year. • Teaching Philosophy of Religion Inclusively to Diverse Students – Group of about 20 scholars who won a Wabash grant to develop pedagogy to teach philosophy of religion to a diverse body of students. We held several worKshops to develop our approaches to teaching and analyzing the results. We will also present our findings at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and produce a booK on the topic. • Engaged Faith, Education, and Service: Collected Public Lectures of Prof. Jacob Kehinde Olupona - Edited volume of public lectures delivered by Prof. J. K. Olupona over the course of this decade on education, civic life, and religion in Nigeria and Africa more broadly. • “Aafa, The Seal of the Orisa” • “Orisa: God or Saint?” • “A Historical and Religious Analysis of Yoruba Ajami” • “Religious Encounter and Sacred Time in Yoruba Religion” • “The Original Gender-Bender: Examining the Gendered Nature of Oduduwa, the Yoruba Progenitor” • “Revisiting the Islamic Origins of Ifa” • “Nigeria’s Queen of Sheba: Uncovering Historic and Mythic Truth of Sungbo’s Eredo” • “The Ink of the Scholar over the Blood of the Martyr: An Analysis of the Growth of Islam in Yorubaland” • “Traditional Religion(s): RethinKing Africa’s Triple Heritage” • “Why So Blue?: Adaptation and Change in the tradition of Ogum in Salvador” Awards Gardner Traveling Fellowship - I was awarded one of about five fellowships in the class of 2010. Through it, I served as an apprentice to a traditional priest/diviner and collected and archived Yoruba oral mythology and history during the 2010-11 academic year with the end goal of 2 children’s booKs of Yoruba myths and legends. Fulbright-Hays Fellowship – For the study of Yoruba in Nigeria (2013) Summer Research Grant (David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies) – For comparative research on syncretism and religious exchange between Candomblé and Catholicism in Brazil and Islam, Christianity, and indigenous Yoruba religion in Nigeria (2014). Phillipe Wamba Grant – For exploratory pre-dissertation research with the traditional ruler and priests in Ẹdẹ, Nigeria (2014). Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship – For dissertation research in Nigeria and Brazil on issues of religious identity and changing religious boundaries and norms (2016). Selva J. Raj Endowed International Dissertation Research Fellowship – For dissertation research in Brazil on religious identity and interactions between Brazilian Catholicism and Candomblé (2017) David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Graduate Student Associate – For dissertation research on Afro-Brazilian religion and Latin American influence on Yoruba religion in Africa (2017-18) Summer Research Travel Grant (David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies) – For the research on the evolution in the worship of the Candomblé orixá Ogum in Salvador, Bahia (2018) John Hope Franklin Dissertation Fellowship – Awarded by the American Philosophical Society in support of an outstanding graduate student and dissertation project (2018). Bowdoin Faculty Research Award – For research on an ancient ruins and sacred queen in Nigeria and a hybrid tradition of neo-indigenous Nigerian religion and Christianity (2019-2020) Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship – Awarded for worK on my booK How Worship Becomes Religion at Amherst College and African Studies at the Five Colleges Consortium (2021-22) Professional Associations American Academy of Religion (2013-present) CODESRIA (2015-present) African Studies Association (2015-present) American Comparative Literature Association (2018-Present) ASWAD (2019-Present) Invited Lectures “Traditional African Religion in Theory and Practice” Re-Examining and Re- Focusing the Teaching of African Society & Culture Workshop (2021) “No Condition Is Permanent: Achebe’s Ambivalent and Nuanced Commentary on Religion in Igboland” Maine Humanities Council (2021) “Gender Controversies in Global Yoruba Religion” Invited Lecture, College of William and Mary (2019) “Traditional Religions, Islam, and Christianity in Africa” Islam in Africa Lecture Series, Harvard University (2017) “Religion, Blacksmithing, and Weaponry in Africa” Pecha Kucha Night, Boston Athenaeum (2016) “Comprehensive Religion: Traditional Religion(s) and the Expanding and Contracting Sacred Canopy” Harvard African Studies WorKshop (2015) Presentations “’Living’ Religion: Egungun as Active Ancestral Agency in the World” African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (2021) “Spreading Sands: Khaṭṭ al-Raml and Indigenous African Divination” European NetworK for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (2020) “The Road to Heaven Is through the Tree: Sacred Trees That Join Heaven and Earth in Traditional West African Religion” American Academy of Religion (2020) “Teaching through Traditional Yoruba Religion” American Academy of Religion (2020) “Yoruba Tradition and Public Life” Indigeneity, Religion, and RemaKing the Public Sphere (2019) “The Separation of Tradition and State: Yoruba Sacred Kings, Governance, and Religion” American Academy of Religion (2019) “Mamalawo?: The Controversy over Women Practicing Ifa Divination” ASWAD (2019) “Bilad al-Brazil: The Importance of West African Scholars in Brazilian Islamic Education and Practice in Historic and Contemporary Perspective” Africa, Globalization, and the Muslim Worlds (2019) “God As Commodity: Religion in Africa and the Diaspora” African Development Conference (2019) “What’s
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