Fellow 2025-2026 Saheed Adesumbo Bello
Saheed Bello received his first PhD in Theatre Arts from the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Nigeria. His PhD research examined African narrative aesthetics at the intersection of film and literature in the postcolonial context.
Saheed’s second PhD project, entitled Epistemology and Morality: A Decolonial Reading of the Oral Philosophy of Ọ̀rúnmìlà, is being finalised at the Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is an interdisciplinary project that sources philosophical, historical, and religious ideas from the oral corpus of Ifá (the Yorùbá knowledge system) and challenges the philosophical argument against decolonization, the critique of orality in African philosophy, and the established disciplinary boundaries that prevent us from embracing and tolerating epistemological pluralism and value pluralism in today’s world.
Saheed Adesumbo Bello was a lecturer (assistant professor) in literary, performance, and cultural studies at the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was an international fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany. At their prestigious institute for African Studies, he explored the relationship between film and philosophy in Africa and the African diaspora, mapping philosophical and cultural objects as well as practices related to the oral corpus of Ifá, the Yorùbá knowledge system. Saheed held a two-year postdoctoral research and teaching fellowship in African Studies at SOAS University of London, UK, where he focused on myths, spirituality, philosophy, and lived experience in African cinematic storytelling. At SOAS, Saheed convened and taught courses in “Perspectives on African Experience” and "Africa in the World". He has signed a contract with Routledge to develop his research project on the relationship between film and philosophy into a book manuscript entitled Africa’s Fourth Cinema: A Yorùbá Ontology.
Dr. Bello has published many high-quality research articles and book chapters. His recent publications include: “Ọ̀rúnmìliàn Film-Philosophy: Aesthetics of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú in Saworoidẹ,” Film and Philosophy: Journal of the Society for the Philosophic Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts, Vol. 27 (2023): 89–103; “Ọ̀rúnmìlà, and the Yorùbá Intellectual Tradition: Words and Language vis-à-vis Western Modernity,” Culture and Dialogue 11 (2023): 85–103; “Ọ̀rúnmìlà Epistemic Reproduction: Nigerian Film Philosophy via Divinity and Orality,” Black Camera: An International Film Journal 13, no. 2 (Spring 2022): 53–68, doi: 10.2979/blackcamera.13.2.03; and “‘Se “Iya” Ni’wo yi?: Questioning Motherhood in Bosede Ademilua-Afolayan’s Drama,’” in Nigerian Female Dramatists: Expression, Resistance, Agency, edited by Bosede Funke Afolayan, Routledge: Taylor & Francis, (2021): 155–166.
