Contact Information
Biography Information
David Olugbenga Ogungbile is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Religion and African Religions in the Department of Religious Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He received his BA (1987) and MA (1992) in Religious Studies from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. He obtained MTS (World Religions) from Harvard University in 2001, and then completed his Ph.D. with a thesis on "Myth, Ritual and Identity in the Religious Traditions of the Osogbo People of Western Nigeria" in 2003 from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. His research engagement has been on the various manifestations, expressions, and the dynamics of religions (Indigenous Religion, Islam and Christianity) in Africa. His interpretations and analysis of indigenous religious traditions make use of mythic narratives and ritual practices, which are the principal markers of how he defines the parameters of human identities, reinforcing his interdisciplinary approach to the religious experiences of African and the African Diaspora. His contributions include: "God: African Supreme Beings" in The "Encyclopedia of Religion" (2nd Edition, 2005); "Body Decoration" in "Encyclopedia of Religion, Communication and Media" (Routledge, 2006); and "Religions: Africa" in "The Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender" (Thomson Gale, 2007). He also recently co-edited two volumes for the Faculty of Arts of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria, titled "Locating the Local in the Global: Voices on a Globalised Nigeria" (2004) and The Humanities, Nationalism and Democracy (2006). His edited volume Creativity and Change in Nigerian Christianity is near completion. He teaches Comparative Religion, Methods and Theories of Religion and Religion and Human Values in the Department of Religious Studies of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; he also teaches World Religion courses as an Adjunct Professor at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso, Nigeria.
Project Description
The project is a product of research conducted for the doctoral dissertation presented to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (2003). The study, which covered the period between 1993 and 2002, focuses on visual and verbal performances that are contained in mythic narrative, ritual practices, songs, praise-poems, dramas, and artistic representations usually expressed and dramatized in annual festivals of the Osogbo-Yoruba people, the events that have brought the community into international socio-cultural attention and indigenous religious limelight. Additionally, the project examines Yoruba indigenous religious communities among the African Diaspora of the Americas and Europe, their mutual interactions and the implications of such interactions on global religious life and experiences, and the effects of the various levels of interactions on global identity, politics, and economy. The study identifies three key problems that characterized most of the early work pursued on indigenous traditions of Africa, and particularly of the Yoruba, perhaps the most studied indigenous people, whose influence traverses beyond Africa throughout Europe and the Americas. Firstly, in previous research, generalizations emerge which did not express local and unique peculiarities of the different religious groups of the Yoruba and of Africa as a whole. Secondly, most of the work completed was not holistic, that is, it was approached, in the main, from different singular disciplinary perspectives without seeing the intrinsic and granular connections between different aspects of religious traditions. Thirdly, most of the work was descriptive and narrative, and not interpretive and analytical. Critical models of analysis in the literature on Yoruba religious traditions, life, and experiences include work by Bolaji Idowu, Wande Abimbola, Omosade Awolalu and Ade Dopamu, and Henry and Margaret Drewal as well as the unique work of Jacob K. Olupona. The current study extends beyond the African continent and is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary exploration and hermeneutics of the verbal and visual expression of the performance of Yoruba culture and life, adopting an interdisciplinary approach which incorporates analytical frameworks from anthropology, history, and phenomenology.