The Tejumola Olaniyan Lecture was established in 2021 by the Tejumola Olaniyan family in partnership with UW-Madison Department of English and the Center for the Humanities, in commemoration of Teju’s generous vision of humanistic scholarship in the field of African, global Black literary and cultural studies. The African Studies Program now hosts the lecture, starting 2024, as part of its Africa at Noon series which continues the tradition of gathering scholars from across the world for thought provoking conversations about Africa and African diaspora research.
Tejumola (Teju) Olaniyan, Louise Durham Mead Professor of English & Wole Soyinka Professor of the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, died suddenly at his home in Madison on Saturday, Nov. 30. He was 60. He was an internationally-recognized scholar of African, African American, and Caribbean literatures, post-colonial studies, genre studies, and popular culture studies, whose distinguished body of work serves as a foundation for other scholars around the world in African and Diasporic studies. Olaniyan’s academic homes at UW–Madison included the departments of English and African Cultural Studies. Read Teju’s memorials courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Communications and the Department of African Cultural Studies.
Fifth Memorial Lecture (April 24, 2024)
Dis War Sef: Contesting Unhomeliness in recent Anglophone Cameroon
Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi
Professor of English and Comparative Literature, North Carolina State University
Ingraham Hall,
1155 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53706
Fourth Memorial Lecture (October 19, 2023)
Gathering Thoughts: The Anthology as an African Genre
Tsitsi Jaji
Helen S. Bevington Associate Professor of Modern Poetry, Departments of English and African & African American Studies, Duke University
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building,
800 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706
Third Memorial Lecture (May 3, 2023)
In Praise of Wild Ecopedagogies
Cajetan Iheka
Professor of English, Yale University
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building,
800 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706
Second Memorial Lecture (April 11, 2022)
Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature: From Greek to African Literature
Ato Quayson
Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of English, Stanford University
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building,
800 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706
First Memorial Lecture (April, 2021)
Second Acts: Theatricality, State and Popular Culture in an African Setting
Moradewun Adejunmobi
Professor of African American and African Studies, University of California, Davis
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building,
800 University Ave., Madison, WI 53706
The Tejumola Olaniyan International Student Travel Award was initiated in 2022 by generous contribution from the Tejumola Olaniyan family to honor the late professor for his extraordinary scholarly contributions and mentorship. Click here to read more on how to apply or support the award.
Meet the Awardees
Nneoma Onwuegbuchi (2024)
PhD Candidate
Department of African Cultural Studies
Oluwayinka Arawomo (2023)
PhD Candidate
Department of English
Michael Oshindoro (2022, Inaugural)
PhD Candidate
Department of African Cultural Studies
The Tejumola Olaniyan Foundation (TOF) was launched in 2022 by the Tejumola Olaniyan family to continue the essence of Teju’s lifetime devotion—promotion of research, collaborative scholarly works and projects in Global Black Cultural Studies, and mentoring of the next generation of scholars. Click here to read more about the foundation and support its mission.