AfOx Fellow
2022
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of African Studies
University of Ibadan
Nigeria

Research Interests

  • African Diaspora Studies
  • African Literature
  • African Cultural Studies 
  • Environmentalism

Dr Senayon Olaoluwa

Senayon Olaoluwa is a lecturer and researcher interested in Diaspora and Transnational Studies. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Africa Studies Centre, University of Oxford, as part of the Africa Oxford Visiting Fellowship Programme.   

Senayon is affiliated with the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he teaches and researches Diaspora and Transnational Studies. He is also the Founder of the Ibadan School of Diaspora Studies. Dr Olaoluwa’s work has been published in African Affairs, African Studies Review, Journal of African Cultural Studies, Research in African Literatures, and ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Senayon obtained his PhD in Humanities from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.    

Senayon’s research is part of an ongoing theoretical and multidisciplinary examination of the antithesis of nostalgia, which he has termed “extalgia”. The project is located within broader discourse of exile and migration and contends that there are forms of suffering and creativity peculiar to those left behind in the homeland. The research explores African and African diaspora literary and cultural texts that include literature, film and visual arts.    

Senayon is currently working on a monograph, and his work at the University of Oxford, when completed, will result in a seven-chapter monograph provisionally entitled “Extalgia: Exile, Homeland Suffering and Creativity in African and Diaspora Experience.” He has completed his first chapter and will write four additional chapters. Each of the chapters is an original contribution. Taken together, they illustrate the complexity of the notion of extalgia and the intersection of the human and the non-human in the discourse of homeland suffering and creativity.  

Key publications

  • Olaoluwa, S. (2021). A review of Mokalik. African Studies Review. Vol. 64 Issue 3, E1-E3. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2021): Beyond Backpacking: Solo “Guerrilla” Border Crossing and the Penetration of Geographies of Power in Olabisi Ajala's An African Abroad''. Journal of Borderlands Studies Vol. 36 No. 3, 487-501. London: Routldge Taylor & Francis.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2021). Cosmopolitans at One with Homeland: Niger Delta Popular Musicians from Rex Lawson and Victor Uwaifo to Omawumi and Burna Boy. In Tanure Ojaide and Enajite Ojaruega (eds). The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta. New York: Routledge, 117-129.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2021). Narrative Archaeology in Biyi Bandele’s Burma Boy. In Helena Feder (ed.). Close Reading the Anthropocene. New York: Routledge, 93-101.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2020): Nationalism and Exile as Self-inscription in Micere Mugo's My Mother's Poem and Other Songs. Research in African Literatures Vol 51, No. 2, 149-166 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press)
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2020): Dislocating Anthropocene: The City and Oil in Helon Habila's Oil on Water. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Vol. 27 No. 2, 243–267. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2018): "We All Come from Brahma": Repetition and the Anticipation of Indian Cultural Imperialism in Indian Doctor. Journal of African Cultural Studies Vol. 30 No.3, 279-292. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2018): The Human and the Non-human: African Sexuality Debate and Symbolisms of Transgression. In Matebeni, Z, Monro, S. and Reddy V. (Eds.). Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship, and Activism. London: Routledge, pp. 20-39.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2017): Synmemory: Civil War Victimhood and the Balance of Tales in Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Habila's Measuring Time. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies Vol. 43 No. 1, 19-31. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2017). Uneasy Double Attachment: Homeland and Exile in Olu Oguibe’s A Gathering Fear. Journal of Literary Studies Vol. 33. No. 2, 82-108. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2015). Travel Gone Awry: Cosmopolitan Love and Female Ordeals in Games Women Play. Journal of Film and Video Vol. 67 No. 2, 21-34. Illinois :University of Illinois Press.
  • Olaoluwa, S. (2014). ''The Being That Animates All Things'': Cannibalization,Simulation and the Animation of Oral Performance in Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow.Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction Vol. 55 No. 4, 389-405. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis.