Jacob Olupona on Mobilizing Young Scholars, Teaching 'Black Panther,' and Building a Legacy at Harvard
“There is no better entry point to the understanding of Africa than its spirituality.”
Professor Jacob K. Olupona is the Professor of African Religious Traditions at Harvard Divinity School, with a joint appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
For the last eight years, Olupona has convened the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies in Nigeria, which focuses on advancing scholarship, academic networking, and mentorship for doctoral and post-doctoral students in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM.
In the following interview, Olupona explains his experience with the Institute, the courses he teaches at Harvard, and the current state and future of African and African American Studies.
Harvard Divinity School: You are both the founder and convener of the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies. How did the institute come about, and was there a particular need that you were trying to address with its establishment?
Jacob K. Olupona: I established the Institute with the support of several scholars. What began as a Nigerian project became an African project, as we were able to draw in scholars and colleagues from different parts of the continent who work in cooperation with scholars based in Europe and America. Quite a number of them have spent time in Africa, specifically in Nigeria, including people like HDS professor Tracey Hucks and Deji Ogunnaike, who was a visiting professor at HDS last year.
The Ife Institute is now in its eighth, but the impetus for its establishment began a number of years ago. When I called on these scholars to come and think about the crisis in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, it was in response to a crisis partly caused by brain drain. Scholars were leaving the country and the continent. We asked them to think creatively about what we are going to do to assist in training young scholars and professionals in Africa so that the gap left, and the problem created by this departure, will not be too advanced on the continent. That was the impetus.
The second idea, which is a principle, is to realize that in the African system and the African situation, when you have such a project and you have such a vision, you must be willing to convince a critical mass of scholars to sit down with you to think through it. Once they agree to work with you, then you begin to implement it.
If you go there to do that single-handedly, it will be described as your project—not as our project. So, I always insist that we use the "we," rather than just say “I” or “my.” That principle is very important, and also very African—the collective response to situations.
When I finished my PhD at Boston University in 1983, I didn't think twice to return home. In Nigeria, I had opportunities to go move mountains, to create programs. When I came back, I was asked to help reorganize the religious studies program in my department.
HDS: How do you think the Institute has helped mitigate the issue of brain drain you talk about?
JKO: We succeeded in mobilizing these critical mass scholars. We designed the program to focus on humanities and social sciences at the beginning. We began to emphasize theory, things that are lacking there, things that people don't take too seriously, or they don't know how to address. Three years ago, we introduced them to STEM.
We're doing very well in the sciences. We were able to also mobilize the local scholars and professors from the continent. We were lucky to have some Nigerian-trained scholars who came on board to help us with the scholars at home.
The prominent professor Morenike Ukpong partnered with Ife to develop the STEM program. We made it into a two-week intensive summer training. When designing the program, we emphasized not only teaching and research, but also mentoring. Young scholars in Africa often do not have mentors to help guide them and train them.
We are not displacing the curriculum that the African universities run. We are not awarding degrees. We are not competing with it. We are just coming in to volunteer our service to supplement what they are doing. We define our own areas of interest as those who are doing their doctorate and the postdoc to bring both of them together. Every year, we pick a team and develop the courses.
Some visiting professors continue to mentor young scholars, to assist and teach them—how to write journal articles, where to publish, how to distinguish between predatory journals and journals that are of high impact, all kinds of things that are connected with academic growth. It's more than theory. It's practical. We give them a direction so they know where to go.
We have been very successful in this vision and in this objective. Our challenge, of course, as usual, is funding. We raise money from friends and from family, as well as some support from a few foundations, but it's not much. Right now, we are paying for our resources. We are renting our rooms, but we need a permanent space.
At the beginning, professors came on their own. They bought their tickets and took care of accommodation, so we only had to provide food. They did this because they understand the problem, and they are committed to it.
I believe some of them, maybe including myself, have this guilty feeling that we left home. And that also explains why this is so important for us.
HDS: Do you see the interest, enthusiasm, and enrollment growing at the Institute?
JKO: Yes, it is growing. We can't cope with the number. This year, we selected 70 fellows to attend in person. There were 100 online because we can't bring them in there. It is too expensive to even bring everyone in. When we began in 2017, we had about 30 fellows.
They expressed not only their happiness that this is happening. They cry, because they have never seen anything like this before, particularly when they see how concerned the professors are in helping to bring them up.
This is an international, global project that has come to stay. However, there is only so much I can do, because I have my own job here at Harvard as the chair of the Department in African American and African Studies. In this year alone in my department, close to eight professors retired.
One of the reasons why I came to Harvard was to build the African Studies program. I was recruited for religion in African American and African Studies. Later, the Divinity School requested that I also have a joint appointment with HDS. I think there's so much to do. We need to rebuild the African Studies program; that is a major priority.
HDS: Do you find that with the students who are coming through the department, whether FAS or HDS, that there is an increased enthusiasm for the scholarship and for these resources and for this teaching compared to almost two decades ago? And who are the students who are enrolled specifically in your classes, and what are they interested in?
JKO: You're absolutely right—the enthusiasm is high. There's a high demand: If you look at the admission rate in the department, I think we admit close to probably five percent of those who apply. We are allowed to admit only four students in African and African American studies. Given the issues that we’re facing, that has not stopped them from wanting to do more or know more and be grounded in African Studies.
There is no better entry point to the understanding of Africa than its spirituality. Last year for my class “African Spirituality and the Challenges of Modern Times,” we used the auditorium in the museum. I'm teaching it again this fall 300 enrolled, and we currently hold the class in Sanders Theatre. Students are inquisitive and want to find out for themselves about what is happening to the continent.
I always look forward to teaching this class each week, because when I get there and bring up my slides, I become so inspired even looking at them and interacting with them. I believe so much in these interactive forms of teaching.
The class features a mix of students from various backgrounds. You will find some who are children of the diaspora and their parents are Americans. You have some Africans who came directly from the continent. You also have white Americans who just want to learn more. You have Asian Americans whose parents are either doing business in Africa or who have read about Africa. It's a mixed class. You have a sizable number of African Americans also there.
HDS: The course description for “African Spirituality and the Challenges of Modern Times” uses Black Panther as the starting point. Have you seen that as an effective way to garner more interest in what is happening on the continent?
JKO: When I first designed this course, I used the title "Black Panther, African Spirituality." Students thought I was going to teach the film. Not only did I watch it twice, but they also encouraged me to go to the theater with them to watch it, which I did.
The more I watched it, the more I saw the vision it had in creating an African worldview that is unknown. I saw that it could teach us something about Indigenous African community, African spirituality, spirituality that talks about the ancestral worship, the importance of animals, the importance of forests, and the dream life.
When you look at how they also engage science and the African minerals that people were exploring in the movie, there are few movies like that that will lead us to the African mind that can teach us about the people themselves.
HDS: Could you talk about your spring 2024 course, “Religion and Society in Nigeria,” which examines Nigeria as a diverse and dynamic and influential country with global religion?
JKO: I realized that we have a sizable number of students from Nigeria or those who are connected with Nigeria. I believe in the teaching of religion, but we also have to talk about the place of religion in specific societies and cultures instead of very general courses that are based on religious traditions.
We talked about the Hindu tradition or the African religion and so on, specifically so that people will see how it unfolds in specific contexts, where we have the chance to look at the geography, the environment, the politics, the culture, the value system, ethics, and so on and so forth. That's the reason why that course is so popular.
And then, of course, I allow the students to work on projects that are of interest to them. We play with a lot of ideas and theories. That's where I talked about some of the things that I was interested in: The questions of sacred kingship, my research in Nigeria about the sacred kingship, the role of rituals, ceremonies and festivals, civil religion, and interfaith relations.
Then I talked about Islam and Christianity as two dominant traditions vis-a-vis Indigenous religion. And then within Christianity, of course we talk about Pentecostalism, charismatic movements, and so on.
I'm also able to talk about Islam in this course—traditional Islam, new forms of Islam, Islam and Sufism, and then the new forms of religious movements that have led to a serious crisis, like the Boko Haram crisis in Northern Nigeria. I try not to teach it every year, because it's a very, very complex subject.
HDS: Can you share more about what it is that you're working on currently?
JKO: I finished a manuscript called "Evangelical Christianity in Nigeria," which was based on several years of field research. It talks about how different forms of Pentecostalism have taken root in Nigeria, how they are in opposition to traditional culture, and how this is causing a lot of friction between traditional Christianity and new forms of Pentecostal charismatic movements.
It's also about finding a way to talk about all of the discontent in the society, in the tradition, particularly as people respond to the growth and expansion of evangelical Christianity in Africa. But now it's doing the case study of Nigeria. Religion keeps expanding and growing in a very complex manner in Nigeria. I should also mention my work In the Twilight of Time: Chief Lóòghò Bámátùlá, a Biography of an African Medicine Man. I gave a presentation on this at Yale University in September 2024. This work will be published in Nigeria in December.
HDS: The Christian population in Nigeria is expected to double by 2060. There's already more Christians in Africa than any other continent. Do you think that speaks to the religious complexity within Nigeria, and within Africa, given its incredibly large numbers of Indigenous religions and spiritual traditions, in addition to the large number of Christians and Muslims?
JKO: That is quite true; it is also the case that Islam is growing. That's why we are interested in the two traditions. We're asking ourselves: What kinds of Islam are we talking about? What kinds of Christianity are we talking about? If it's evangelical or Pentecostal, what does that mean for the society and the culture?
This is why I have been very vocal about the need for us to replace recently retired faculty as quickly as possible because of the importance of teaching that subject. Dean Marla Frederick has really supported it.
HDS: Do you have a goal in mind at the beginning of a class or at the beginning of a semester for your students? What you want them to either take away or what you want them to accomplish?
JKO: Yes, I have it for every class I teach. I want them to understand the depth of the nature of religion in Nigeria or Africa—not just the kinds of peripheral knowledge of tradition that we see in the press or on social media. This subject matter should be better than what we read in The New York Times about this particular subject. We should be more informed.
I also want students to see the relevance of the subject to their academic pursuits, whether science, health, law, business, and so on.
Quite often, most students do not know how much they can garner from what we're teaching them and how much relevance it has, even in the contemporary period. We are training them to be global citizens, to have knowledge of the world, but we must also be able to say in concrete terms how this will affect their career, whatever the career is. In all my courses, I try to emphasize how important having a global perspective is.
I've trained quite a number of PhDs at Harvard, and success lies in the ability to encourage them to take African scholarship seriously. How many African scholars have they cited? Do they read the scholarship by global African scholars? These things are very important to me.
—HDS Office of Communications