International Conference in Honour of Prof. Barry Hallen

In the last five decades, we have witnessed intense theoretical engagements in African philosophy, with a wide range of substantive philosophical issues and meta-philosophical problems. These kind of theoretical interrogations have culminated in a number of seminal works influencing discourses in African Philosophy. One such work is Barry Hallen’s The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture. As the “theory-scape” of African philosophy continues to enlarge, it is important for there to be more inter-generational engagement in the field, where deep conversation can be sustained between pioneers like Hallen, his immediate inheritors, and upcoming scholars.

Twenty years after its publication, it is time to interrogate the impact that Hallen’s The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful has had on areas such as ethics, aesthetics, ontology, epistemology, language, literary, and cultural studies in Africa. 

To this end, the Department of Philosophy at Obafemi Awolowo University is organizing an international conference that will generate and extend intergenerational debates on issues raised by Hallen’s trailblazing book, as well as his other works.