{{short description|Nigerian-American writer and historian}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2018}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Saheed Aderinto | honorific_suffix = | image = Saheed_Aderinto.jpg | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1979|01|22}} | birth_place = Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|1979|01|22}}--> | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline}} --> | monuments = | other_names = | education = | alma_mater = University of Ibadan, University of Texas, Austin | occupation = professor, historian, filmmaker, writer | years_active = | employer = Florida International University | organization = | known_for = Historical scholarship | notable_works = ''Animality and Colonial Subjecthood: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria''; ''Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria'' | style = | television = | spouse = Olamide Aderinto | children = Itandola • Itandayo | parents = | relatives = | awards = 2023 Dan David Prize; Nigerian Studies Association Book Prize for "When Sex Threatened the State." | website = {{URL|https://www.saheedaderinto.com/}} }}
'''Saheed Aderinto''' (born January 22, 1979) is a Nigerian American Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University, an award-winning author, and a filmmaker. He is the Founding President of the Lagos Studies Association.<ref name="WCU News">{{Cite news|url=https://news-prod.wcu.edu/2017/04/aderinto-leads-establishment-lagos-studies-association/|title=Aderinto leads establishment of Lagos Studies Association – WCU News|date=April 13, 2017|work=WCU News|access-date=2018-01-12|language=en-US}}</ref> In February 2023, Aderinto received the $300,000 Dan David Prize–the largest financial reward for excellence in the historical discipline in the world in recognition of his “outstanding scholarship that illuminates the past and seeks to anchor public discourse in a deeper understanding of history.”<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dan David Prize |url=https://dandavidprize.org/ |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=Dan David Prize |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Dan David Prize, World's largest history prize announces 2023 winner |language=en-US |work=The Jerusalem Post |url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-732970 |access-date=2023-02-28 |issn=0792-822X}}</ref> He has published eight books, thirty-six journal articles and book chapters, forty encyclopedia articles, and twenty book reviews. His debut documentary film, ''The Fuji Documentary ''premiered in February 2024''.''''<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://faculty.wcu.edu/saderinto/curriculum-vita/|title=Curriculum Vita – Saheed Aderinto|website=faculty.wcu.edu|language=en-US|access-date=2018-02-03|archive-date=April 11, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190411070205/https://faculty.wcu.edu/saderinto/curriculum-vita/|url-status=dead}}</ref>'''''
== Biography == Aderinto was born in Ibadan (Nigeria) on January 22, 1979. He completed his elementary school education at Adeen International School in 1990 and secondary school at Ibadan City Academy in 1996. He then went on to earn a BA in History from the University of Ibadan in 2004. Aderinto moved to the United States in 2005 to study at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his MA and PhD in 2007 and 2010, respectively. In Fall of 2010, he started his teaching career at [https://www.wcu.edu/ Western Carolina University], Cullowhee NC. In Fall 2022, Aderinto started a new position as Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University.
== Scholarship == thumb|394x394px|left Aderinto is influenced by a "total" approach to historical research. Instead of locating historical ideas or events solely within a specific branch of history (such as social, political or economic), Aderinto adopts a holistic approach that borrows vocabulary, methodology, and discursive tools from a wide range of disciplines and sub-disciplines. He is driven by ideas that do not "over-compartmentalize" history but connect diverse strands of knowledge in understanding the past. From works on children and sexuality to guns and animals, he has expanded the frontiers of Nigerian history, disturbing disciplinary boundaries in meaningful ways.
Aderinto's publications conform to the research agenda of the "Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria." Scholars of this era of Nigerian history, as he demonstrated in one of his books with a similar title, are ideologically motivated by the need to show the importance of history to contemporary Nigeria. Aderinto is drawn to themes like sexuality, which his predecessors hesitated to write about and under-researched populations like children, placing their experience at the center of colonial discourse of modernity. Furthermore, he challenges the rigid binary between colonial and postcolonial ideas by demonstrating that historical periods should not be treated with undue rigidity; rather historians should recognize the continuity and change in core structures and processes that produced them. Aderinto is definitely not the first historian to articulate the need to connect precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial Nigerian history to form a holistic thread of ideas. However, he is one of the few scholars putting this into practice by devoting carefully written epilogues focusing on postcolonial period to books on the colonial period—while also providing a separate chapter on the precolonial period. Aderinto's scholarship on love, romantic passion, and emotions, stand at the crossroads of gender, race, social class, and power formation across time and space.
Aderinto is the author of ''When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958'' (University of Illinois Press, 2015) winner of the 2016 Nigerian Studies Association’s Book Award Prize for the “most important scholarly book/work on Nigeria published in English language.”<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://nigerianstudiesassociation.org/?p=191|title=2016 NSA Book Award – The Nigerian Studies Association|date=January 25, 2017|work=The Nigerian Studies Association|access-date=2018-02-03|language=en-US|archive-date=February 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180203182738/http://nigerianstudiesassociation.org/?p=191|url-status=dead}}</ref> The book examines "the intersection of sex work and the imperial project in British Nigeria."''<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbvQAwAAQBAJ|title=When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958|last=Aderinto|first=Saheed|date=December 30, 2014|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252096846|language=en}}</ref> ''It has been described as "The first comprehensive history of sexuality of colonial Nigeria."''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/47gsh4dc9780252038884.html|title=UI Press {{!}} Saheed Aderinto {{!}} When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958|last=Aderinto|first=Saheed|website=www.press.uillinois.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-01-12}}</ref> ''It "combines the study of a colonial demimonde with an urban history of Lagos and a look at government policy to reappraise the history of Nigerian public life''."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/36114|title=When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958|last=Aderinto|first=Saheed|date=2014|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252096846|language=English}}</ref> ''Another critic thought that "Saheed Aderinto has produced a very important contribution to African social history and Nigerian historiography''''' <nowiki>''</nowiki>'''''When Sex Threatened the State has been reviewed in more than a dozen journals, including the'' Canadian Journal of African Studies, American Historical Review, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Africa: the Journal of the International African Institute, Canadian Journal of History, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Journal of West African History, the Historian, and Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, ''among others.
He is also the author of ''Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order'' (Indiana University Press, 2018).<ref>{{Cite book |last=ADERINTO |first=SAHEED |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2204p6x |title=Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order |date=2018 |publisher=Indiana University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt2204p6x |jstor=j.ctt2204p6x |isbn=978-0-253-03160-0}}</ref> The book examines the evolution of Nigeria into a gun society during the first half of the twentieth century. In this book, Aderinto details the complex interactions between Nigerians and guns as a significant element of African colonial encounter.
Aderinto is the first and only Nigerian to be awarded the prestigious Dan David Prize.<ref>{{Cite news |date=February 28, 2023 |title=Prestigious Dan David Prize names 9 historians as winners |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/prestigious-dan-david-prize-names-9-historians-as-winners/2023/02/28/6204b22e-b794-11ed-b0df-8ca14de679ad_story.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=feed |first=watermark |date=2023-02-28 |title=DAN DAVID PRIZE, WORLD'S LARGEST HISTORY PRIZE, ANNOUNCES 2023 WINNERS |url=https://www.aap.com.au/uncategorised/cision20230228ae26737/ |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=Australian Associated Press |language=en}}</ref> Announcing the winners in February 2023, the selection committee lauded Aderinto’s work for "situating African history at the cutting edge of diverse literatures in the histories of sexuality, nonhumans, and violence, noting that it is exceptional to see a single person leading scholarship in all of these fields."<ref>{{Cite web |title=2023 Dan David Prize Announcement |url=https://dandavidprize.org/2023-dan-david-prize-announcement/ |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=Dan David Prize |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Filmmaking == In February 2024, Aderinto premiered the first episode of his documentary film, ''The Fuji Documentary.''<ref>{{Cite news |last=Apanpa |first=Olaniyi |date=2024-02-12 |title=US-based professor premieres documentary on Ayinde Barrister |url=https://punchng.com/us-based-professor-premieres-documentary-on-ayinde-barrister/ |access-date=2024-07-27 |newspaper=The Punch|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Suleiman |first=Qosim |date=2024-02-19 |title=Professor premieres documentary on late Ayinde Barrister at 13th remembrance anniversary |url=https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/music/fuji/669756-professor-premieres-documentary-on-late-ayinde-barrister-at-13th-remembrance-anniversary.html |access-date=2024-07-27 |newspaper=Premium Times|language=en}}</ref> Since then, it has been screened at academic conferences, documentary film festivals, public spaces, and university campuses in Africa, Europe, and North America. The first episode chronicles the life and times of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, the pioneer of Fuji music, which has now become a major popular culture of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria and the global African diaspora, influencing a wide range of music genres including Afrobeats and contemporary Nigerian gospel music.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Olawoyin |first=Oladeinde |title=Review: Mr Fuji: Barry Wonder – First episode screams respectful admiration |url=https://www.premiumtimesng.com/features-and-interviews/662249-review-mr-fuji-barry-wonder-first-episode-screams-respectful-admiration.html?tztc=1 |access-date=2024-07-27 |newspaper=Premium Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Owolabi |first=Adekunle |date=2024-05-15 |title=New Documentary Explores Fújì Music's Rich Tapestry |url=https://theafricadailypost.com/313416/culture/music/new-documentary-explores-fuji-musics-rich-tapestry/ |access-date=2024-07-27 |website=The Africa Daily Post |language=en-US}}</ref> Emeritus Professor Karin Barber describes ''The Fuji Documentary'' as "a landmark in popular music documentation." In an interview he granted to ''The Conversation'', in April 2024 he explains how Fuji transformed from a religious to a secular music in the 1970s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2024-04-01 |title=Fuji music in Nigeria: new documentary shines light on a popular African culture |url=http://theconversation.com/fuji-music-in-nigeria-new-documentary-shines-light-on-a-popular-african-culture-224976 |access-date=2024-07-27 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Lagos Studies Association == The history of the Lagos Studies Association dates back to May 2016 when Aderinto co-organized a conference on Lagos with Abosede George and Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi at Barnard College, New York City. Participants at the conference noted the significance of having an organization to harmonize the works of academic and non-academic practitioners of Lagos. They suggested the formation of the LSA.<ref name="WCU News"/> In spring of 2017, Aderinto led the establishment of the LSA as "an international, interdisciplinary organization of academic and non-academic practitioners whose interest focus on Lagos and its peoples."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Announcing the establishment of the Lagos Studies Association. |url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/28765/discussions/173697/announcing-establishment-lagos-studies-association |access-date=2018-01-12 |website=H-Net |language=en}}</ref> The LSA organizes the annual Lagos Conference held in Lagos (Nigeria) and holds panels at international conferences of the African Studies Association of the United States and the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lagosstudies.wcu.edu|title=Lagos Studies Association {{!}} Just another WordPress site|website=lagosstudies.wcu.edu|language=en-US|access-date=2018-02-03}}</ref>
== Books == Aderinto has published eight books, thirty-six journal articles and book chapters, forty encyclopedia articles, and twenty book reviews.<ref name=":0" />
*{{Cite book |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JiBkEAAAQBAJ&dq=Animality+and+Colonial+Subjecthood+in+Africa%3A+The+Human+and+Nonhuman+Creatures+of+Nigeria+%28Ohio+University+Press&pg=PP1 |title=Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria |date=2022 |publisher=Ohio University Press |isbn=978-0-8214-4768-0 |language=en}} *{{Cite book |last1=Gennaro |first1=Michael J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQWQDwAAQBAJ&dq=Sports+in+African+History,+Politics,+and+Identity+Formation+(New+York:+Routledge,+April+2019),+co-edited+with+Michael+Gennaro.&pg=PA23 |title=Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation |last2=Aderinto |first2=Saheed |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-66855-5 |language=en}} *{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sVDFAQAACAAJ|title=Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order|last=Aderinto|first=Saheed|date=2018|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=9780253031600|language=en}}<ref>{{Cite book|title=Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order|last=Aderinto|first=Saheed|date=2018|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=9780253031617|language=English}}</ref> *{{Cite book |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2204p6x |title=Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria |date=2018 |publisher=Indiana University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt2204p6x |isbn=978-0-253-03162-4}} *{{Cite book |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6hXHEAAAQBAJ&dq=African+Kingdoms:+An+Encyclopedia+of+Empires+and+Civilizations&pg=PP1 |title=African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-61069-580-0 |location=Santa Barbara, CA |language=en}} *{{Cite book |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2QzACQAAQBAJ&dq=Children+and+Childhood+in+Colonial+Nigerian+Histories+%28New+York%3A+Palgrave+Macmillan%2C+2015%29%2C&pg=PP1 |title=Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigerian Histories |date=2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-49293-7 |language=en}} *{{Cite book |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |url=https://doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252038884.001.0001 |title=When Sex Threatened the State |date=2014 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |doi=10.5406/illinois/9780252038884.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-252-03888-4}} *{{Cite book |last1=Aderinto |first1=Saheed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FscwBwAAQBAJ&dq=The+Third+Wave+of+Historical+Scholarship+on+Nigeria%3A+Essays+in+Honor+of+Ayodeji+Olukoju&pg=PR7 |title=The Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ayodeji Olukoju |last2=Osifodunrin |first2=Paul |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-4712-4 |language=en}} *''Nigeria, Nationalism, and Writing History'' (University of Rochester Press, 2010), co-authored 1580463584.
== Notable journal articles == *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2018 |title=Empire Day in Africa: Patriotic Colonial Childhood, Imperial Spectacle and Nationalism in Nigeria, 1905–60 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2018.1452538 |journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |language=en |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=731–757 |doi=10.1080/03086534.2018.1452538 |issn=0308-6534|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2015 |title=Journey to Work: Transnational Prostitution in Colonial British West Africa |url=https://doi.org/10.7560/jhs24105 |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=99–124 |doi=10.7560/jhs24105 |issn=1043-4070|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2015 |title="O! Sir I do not know either to kill myself or to stay": Childhood Emotion, Poverty, and Literary Culture in Nigeria, 1900–1960 |url=https://doi.org/10.1353/hcy.2015.0024 |journal=The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=273–294 |doi=10.1353/hcy.2015.0024 |issn=1941-3599|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2013 |title=Where Is the Boundary?: Cocoa Conflict, Land Tenure, and Politics in Western Nigeria, 1890s-1960 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/sht054 |journal=Journal of Social History |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=176–195 |doi=10.1093/jsh/sht054 |issn=0022-4529|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2012 |title="The problem of Nigeria is slavery, not white slave traffic": Globalization and the politicization of prostitution in Southern Nigeria, 1921–1955 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2012.659576 |journal=Canadian Journal of African Studies |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1080/00083968.2012.659576 |issn=0008-3968|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2012 |title=Of Gender, Race, and Class: The Politics of Prostitution in Lagos, Nigeria, 1923–1954 |url=https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2012.a491661 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=71–92 |doi=10.1353/fro.2012.a491661 |issn=1536-0334|url-access=subscription }} *{{Cite journal |last=Aderinto |first=Saheed |date=2012 |title=Dangerous Aphrodisiac, Restless Sexuality: Venereal disease, biomedicine, and protectionism in colonial Lagos, Nigeria |url=https://doi.org/10.1353/cch.2012.0043 |journal=Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History |volume=13 |issue=3 |doi=10.1353/cch.2012.0043 |issn=1532-5768|url-access=subscription }}
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Aderinto, Saheed}} Category:Living people Category:21st-century Nigerian historians Category:Writers from Ibadan Category:University of Ibadan alumni Category:English-language Nigerian writers Category:1979 births Category:Western Carolina University faculty Category:Nigerian emigrants to the United States