About AAO

It is a pleasure to have you visit this site. Welcome!

Ademola Adesola is my name. I am a Nigerian-Canadian assistant professor at the Department of English, Languages, and Cultures, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada. I completed my first and second degrees in literature at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. As a consequence of some circumstances, my love for literature prevailed over my affection for the study of law. Whether it is law or literature, all I want is to teach. Either of them, in my view, is a viable vehicle for accomplishing that end. Since embracing literature as the means to cultivating minds and producing knowledge, I have found that, as Charles Bukowski admonishes, I have no other duty but to be “reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.” Teaching has been for me the means to make my mark in life.

Before moving to Canada for my doctoral research, I did work in Nigeria as an arts journalist, university teacher, and senior special assistant on media and speech writing in a governmental appointed position in Osun State.

I completed my doctorate at the University of Manitoba, Canada, where I also taught at the International College of Manitoba. My doctoral work on children at war (African child soldiers) attracted different awards, including the Dr. Vernon B. Rhodenizer Scholarship and the Berdie and Irvin Cohen Scholarship in Peace and Conflict Studies. I was also chosen for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Preliminary Selection at the University of Alberta but had to give it up because of my tenure-track position at Mount Royal University.

My research and teaching interests are postcolonial literature, African and Black diaspora literatures, child soldier narratives, war and literature, popular culture, and human rights. My research and teaching emphasize the celebration of differences. More, my research informs what I teach and what I teach inspires what I research. Ideas from my courses shape what I present at conferences and other forums, in the same way that subjects that I work on  constitute the substances of some of my courses.

I have published essays in different journals and book chapters on African and Black literatures. My main monograph entitled Representations of Child Soldiers in Contemporary African Narratives was published in the fall of 2024. The monograph examines the literary depictions of African child soldiers with a view to mapping the dominant factors that writers privilege in their depictions of child soldiering in sub-Saharan Africa. In its engagement with African child soldier narratives, the book argues that critical discussions of African child soldier literature have depended on the interpretive frameworks supplied by Western humanitarian discourses which oversimplify and de-historicize experiences of war in Africa.

I also function as a public intellectual. I have written several opinion editorials on varied topical national sociopolitical issues in Nigeria published in major Nigerian newspapers and online platforms. As a political affairs analyst, I have appeared (and still do so) on different broadcast media to discuss and analyze the human condition, especially in Nigeria.

At Mount Royal University, I serve in varied capacities, including being an elected member of the General Faculties Council, which is a body saddled with the academic affairs of the university. Since joining the institution, I have worked, and continue to exert myself, to promote African and Black literary productions. In fall 2023 I initiated and organized the inaugural edition of an initiative called “African and Black Writings in Canada Speaker Series: Enhancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Through Stories and Conversations.” Aimed at celebrating and showcasing the works of African and Black Canadian writers, the Series has attracted prominent multiple-award-winning Black Canadian authors. I also continue to invite into my classes African and Black scholars and thinkers.

I belong to different scholarly associations. These include the Lagos Studies Association (where I serve as an elected member of the Conference Organizing Committee), African Literature Association, African Studies Association, Ife Institute of Advanced Studies (where I became a Fellow in 2020), and Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English.

I derive delight in scribbling poems. I enjoy debating global politics; biking keeps me active; and teaching animates.