Tani Protocol? Is this celebrities turn? Thank you!
Some years ago, I sat at this academic event with a relative who was not used to academic programme and with limited comprehension of the English language. Precisely this was a convocation lecture of a relative. She heard and saw almost everyone who took the mic slightly doff their academic cap and turning towards the high table, say either The Vice-Chancellor Ma/Sir, “I like to stand on existing or already established protocol.” As the 2-3 hours academic event was concluding, she leaned over to me and said, “Oluwaseyi,” I said, “ma,”. She pointed toward the high table and asked, “tani protocol ninu gbogbo awon to soro ati awon to joko. Ogbodo je eniyan pataki (who is protocol among all the people who spoke or are seated at the high table, he or she must be important). I told her I would tell her which protocol was after the event.
If you have been in academia for only 5 minutes, the same way protocol is a buzzword at an official event, you would have heard or read about Turn. We talk about all kinds of turns. Literary Turn, Cultural Turn, Postcolonial Turn, and Decolonial Turn? Intellectually savvy Professor of Lliterature, Gender, and Sexuality Naminata Diabate asks if it is a " pleasure turn" in African studies.
Turn, although in recent times it seems to slip into cliché, is used to define disruption, shifts and slippages, departures, and continuity—juncture and ruptures through times and space in any field. A turn is reductively defined as a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift is different from a mediocre change. It is a field or discipline alteration occassioned by a certain moment, person, idea, research. The junction of departure and transformation that drastically changes and shifts how we read, research, or think in a field.
In the past few days, when I reflect on the cutting-edge presentations at the panels I organized and chaired at LSA 2022 and 2023, I ask if we are at celebrity turn?
Usually, I will attempt a synopsis of the presentations to thank panelists and also reflect on the panels' innovative presentation, but LSA has made my job easy. Subscribe to LSA YouTube channel, and you can watch the presentations at your convenience when it is uploaded.
Finally, thank you to the undisputed genius and masquerade Nigerian-American Professor Saheed Aderinto, who yearly curates an academic carnival of excellence that leaves the intellectual community with a Memorable Multisensory Experience (MME). Thank you for all you do for our great organization. My appreciation also to all the volunteers and organizing committee.
Posted on Facebook on June 27, 2023
