Adetayo Alabi

Dr. Adetayo Alabi teaches African and other world literatures and cultures at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Oral Forms of Nigerian Autobiography and Life Stories (London and New York: Routledge, 2022) and Telling Our Stories: Continuities and Divergences in Black Autobiographies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He was the editor of The Global South, published by Indiana University Press, between 2007 and 2013. During his tenure as the editor of The Global South, he edited special issues of the journal on Nollywood and The Global South (with others), Latin America in a Global Age, The Caribbean and Globalization, and Africa in a Global Age. His other publications have appeared in the Encyclopedia of the Yoruba and Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Literatures. He has also published several book chapters, including those in The Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore; Life, Literature, and the Environment: Essays on Tanure Ojaide’s Writing; The Nigeria-Biafra War: An Intellectual History; Ogoni’s Agonies: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Crisis in Nigeria; The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities; Marvels of the African World: African Cultural Patrimony, New World Connections, and Identities; Yoruba Creativity: Fiction, Language, Life, and Songs; and in journals like Research in African Literatures, Liwuram, African Literature Today, and In-Between.

Research and Writing Interests: 

African, African-American, Caribbean, and other Postcolonial and World Literatures; Autobiographical Genre in Comparative Black Literatures; Literary Theory, particularly Postcolonial, Globalization, and Feminist Theories

Publications

Selected Publications Books Oral Forms of Nigerian Autobiography and Life Stories. London and New York: Routledge, 2022.

Telling Our Stories: Continuities and Divergences in Black Autobiographies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Special Journal Issues Edited and Introduced:

Nollywood and The Global South (edited with Kolawole Olaiya, and Ifeanyi Ezeonu)

Special Issue of The Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 7.1 (Spring 2013): 1-202.

Latin America in a Global Age (editor) Special Issue of The Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 4.1 (Spring 2010): 1-221.

The Caribbean and Globalization (editor)

Special Issue of The Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 4.2 (Fall 2010): 1-241.

Africa in a Global Age (editor) Special Issue of The Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2.2 (Fall 2008): 1-190.

Essays “Wole Soyinka’s Ori Olokun Emprise and Autobiography.” Yoruba Studies Review 7.1 (October) 2022.

“When Witches and Wizards Are Narrators: Oral Autobiography, Magical Realism, and Memory.” The Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore. Edited by Toyin Falola and Akintunde Akinyemi. New York: Palgrave, 2021.

“Udje Aesthetics in Tanure Ojaide’s Poetry.” Life, Literature, and the Environment: Essays on Tanure Ojaide’s Writing. Edited by Onookome Okome and Obari Gomba. Milwaukee, WI: Cissus World Press, 2019, 46-59.

“Magical Realism or Science Fiction: The Nigerian Civil War and Ali Mazrui’s The Trial of Christopher Okigbo.” The Nigeria-Biafra War: An Intellectual History. Edited by Toyin Falola and Oge Ezekwem. Oxford: James Currey, 2016, 314-327.

Education

Ph.D. in English, University of Saskatchewan

M.A. in English Language and Literature, University of Guelph

M.A. in English Language, University of Ibadan

B.A. Honors in English Studies (Second Class Upper Division), Obafemi Awolowo University

Office
C216 Bondurant Hall
662-915-6948
aalabi@olemiss.edu