Tejumola Olaniyan, Eminent Professor of English and African Cultural Studies, Dies at 60

Tejumola Olaniyan, eminent professor of English and African literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died of heart failure in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, November 30, 2019. He had turned 60 in April this year.

Tejumola Olaniyan was Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and Wole Soyinka Professor of the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he had been teaching since 2001. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Ife, and his M.A. and Ph.D from Cornell University. Over the course of his career, he published and taught on a wide range of subjects including the global politics of African music, the role of the state in African cultural production, as well as contemporary African theater and drama. At the time of his death, he was maintaining an online encyclopedia of African political cartooning and cartoonists.

Tejumola Olaniyan is survived by his wife, Mojisola Olaniyan, Assistant Dean for Academic Enhancement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, and two daughters. He will be greatly missed by his numerous friends, colleagues, and students whom he helped mentor and support in uncountable ways.

To read the official obituary from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, click here.