2026/2027

Jacob K. Olupona, Ph.D.

Professor of African and African American Studies

Harvard University

from February to June 2027
Born in 1951 in Ute, Ondo State, Nigeria
BA in Religious Studies, University of Nigeria, MA and PhD in History of Religions, Boston University

Arbeitsvorhaben

Yorùbá Thought and Culture: Insights from Ifá Divination Poetry

Based on extensive ethnographic research and interviews with Ifá diviners in southwestern Nigeria, my project consists of collating, digitizing, and interpreting the intricacies of Ifá divination poetry. African indigenous knowledge systems contain some of the most highly sophisticated theoretical material related to the environment, arts, medicine, and human social relations. Yet they are often under-researched or poorly theorized due to lack of access to databases of indigenous knowledge systems. My academic scholarship thus far has focused on interpreting Yorùbá religious traditions and festivals from an “indigenous hermeneutics” perspective, and I have a special interest and expertise in Ifá, a Yorùbá knowledge system that uses a ritual process of divination to access a plethora of oral knowledge. This knowledge resides in 256 odù (chapters) of “laws” that have never been systematically documented. The 256 odù of Ifá are a corpus of sacred wisdom, with each chapter and its verses addressing a divergent array of human situations. I will draw on my previous scholarship on kingship, festivals in Ile-Ife, theorizing Orisa worship as a global tradition, ritual practice, and African medicine and herbal knowledge, alongside close textual analysis of ritual songs, poems, and performances. My fellowship will be spent drafting my book, which analyzes excerpts of Ifá divination poetry, drawing on Yorùbá linguistics, mythology, and spirituality and culture to show how Ifá divination narratives are central for understanding Yorùbá thought and culture. I center the work on African indigenous hermeneutics and provide a written and digital archive of sacred knowledge.

Recommended Reading

Olupona, Jacob K., and Terry Rey, eds. Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture. University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Olupona, Jacob K. City of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination. University of California Press, 2011.
Olupona, Jacob K., and Oluwole Akinyosoye. In the Twilight of Time: Chief Lóògò Bámútùlá; A Biography of an African Medicine Man. University Press plc, 2024.

Publikationen aus der Fellowbibliothek

Olupona, Jacob K. (Cambridge, Mass, 2013)

Bonds, boundaries, and the bondage of faith : religion at the crosroads in Nigeria