Prof Simeon Ilesanmi Delivers 2nd Folorunso Alakija Distinguished Lecture at Harvard University

Ololade Adeyanju/

Nigerian-born American don, Prof. Olusegun Simeon Ilesanmi, will today deliver this year’s Folorunso Alakija Distinguished Lecture on Religion and Public Life in Africa organised by Harvard University Center for African Studies.

Ilesanmi, a Washington M. Wingate Professor of Religion at Wake Forest University, North Carolina will speak on the topic, ‘Legal Regulation of Faith: the Limits of Religious Freedom and the Challenge of COVID-19 in Africa’.

Professor David Hempton, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School will provide welcome remarks, with responses to the keynote address from Professor Jacob Olupona, Professor of African Religious Traditions, Harvard Divinity School and Professor Elizabeth Foster, Associate Professor of History, Tufts University.

Mrs. Folorunso Alakija, Vice Chairman, Famfa Oil Limited, will give the closing remarks.

The virtual event holds from 10am – 12pm (EST) or 5pm – 6pm (CAT).

Participants can register via the link below:

https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_z0aSjERlRZy18kkKOz2Wzg

In a preview of his lecture, Ilesanmi noted, “The unexpected outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic early this year has posed serious challenges to the constitutional protection of religious belief and practice, a feature of the legal veneer that many African countries often dubiously flaunt as an emblem of their liberal political outlook and democratic aspiration. To curtail this global public health crisis, nearly every African government instituted certain restrictive measures to which religious communities responded with varying degrees of compliance and sometimes outright contempt.

“My talk will examine the confluence of legal, political, and cultural issues that these restrictive measures raise, and their implications for understanding and predicting the future trajectories of religion-state relationships in Africa.

“What, for example, are the religious liberty implications of the pandemic-related restrictions on assembling for religious purposes? How far can a government limit religious freedom in the name of fighting the coronavirus (COVID-19) under municipal and international law? Are there other contextual reasons for religious opposition to or skepticism about government pandemic-related restrictions? To what extent does the integrity problem of many African governments explain the pervasive lackadaisical attitude of the people toward these restrictions and other public health measures?”

Background:

In 2018, the Center for African Studies launched the Folorunso Alakija Distinguished Lecture on Religion and Public Life in Africa. This annual lecture is sponsored by the Harvard Center for African Studies and generously supported by Alakija in her capacity as an Africa Advisory Board Member of the Center for African Studies’ Africa. 

This lecture provides a platform for the Harvard University Center for African Studies to connect faith leaders with the Harvard community and beyond in a conversation about the constantly shifting and contested boundary between the secular and the sacred, the public and the private.

About the Guest Lecturer:

Ilesanmi is the Washington M. Wingate Professor and Convener for the JD/MA in religious Studies dual-degree Program at Wake Forest University. He received his PhD from Southern Methodist University and his JD from Wake Forest University School of Law.

His numerous publications include Religious Pluralism and the Nigerian State (1997), The Rule of Law and the Rule of God (2014), Journal and Law Review articles and book chapters on topics that reflect his broad research interest in Comparative Ethics, Just War Theory, Human Rights, and the intersections of law, religion, and ethics.

He had been a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting fellow at Princeton University, a member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, and a faculty fellow of Aspen Institute. He serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

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