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Daniel Ajayi
Tel.: +4915216694418 E-Mail: daniel-oluwafemi.ajayi@s2019.tu-chemnitz.de, ajayidanielo84@gmail.com |
On the scholarship of the DAAD project, Daniel Ajayi is here as a research guest in the Department of English Language and Linguistics.
Short curriculum vitae and research interests
My research idea sits at the less travelled and difficult borders of language, culture, religion and psychiatry. Deeply influenced by Michel Foucault’s works on the experience of “madness” and “unreason” especially in the Classical Age, I am particularly interested in the perspectivization and socio-cultural construction of mental health disorders and traumatic conditions in Nigeria. I focus on how mental health patients in conventional psychiatric hospitals, trado-medical and religious homes, rehabilitation and correctional centers in Nigeria present their conditions and tell stories of their experiences and how such conditions or experiences are shaped by culture, religion and other pre-existing social notions about mental illness. Additionally, my research seeks to interrogate the role of language in the construction of healing and treatment therapies for patients with different forms of mental illness in Nigeria. Beyond my current research, I am also interested in the intersection of literature, psychiatry, and traditional medicine on the one hand and on the other hand, language, popular culture and African oral tradition.
Before joining the Department of English Language and Linguistics at TU Chemnitz as a DAAD scholar, I had my Bachelor of Arts in English from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where I received the Department’s award as the Best Graduating Student of my set (2007/08). Thereafter, I completed my master’s degree program in English at the University of Ibadan with an outstanding cumulative grade. During my master’s program, I worked on Nigerian hip hop with keen focus on the language of abuse in contemporary Nigeria hip hop music. In this work, I interrogated battling lyrical texts in Nigerian hip hop as well as different identities constructed in these texts. On completing my master’s degree program, I was offered a teaching position as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko where I taught several courses in English Syntax (Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and Chomsky’s Transformational Generative Grammar), Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics.
Conferences
| 2019 | Eighth Brno Conference on Linguistics Studies in English 2019, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, September 12 – 13. Theme: Functional Plurality of Language in Contextualized Discourse Paper presented: Diagnostic Relevance of Formulations in Nigerian Psychiatric Interactions |
| Digital English World-Wide: Corpus and Discourse Analyses, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany, July 5 – 6, . Paper presented: "Do you understand there is a problem?”: Politeness and Mental Health Conditions in Diagnostic Interactions in Nigerian Mental Health Institutions. |
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| Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Scholarship Holder Meeting, Heidelberg, Germany, May 17 – 19. Theme: Scientific Freedom, Scientific Responsibility. |
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| MoChHa (Modena-Chemnitz-Hanoi Meeting), Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Culturali, Universita Degli Studi Di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy, May 2 – 3. Paper presented: Discursive Construction of Treatment, Healing and Mental Health Conditions in Nigerian Total Institutions |
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| 2018 | 3rd Lagos Studies Association Conference, University of Lagos, June 21 – 23. Paper presented: Living Things’: Combative Language and Urban Youth Culture in Abolore Akande Adigun’s (9ice) Hip Hop Music. |
| 2016 | 1st Faculty of Arts International Conference, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, June 27 – 30. Paper presented: >Duelling with Music: The Treatment of Face among Nigerian Hip-Hop Artistes. |
| 2015 | 31st Annual National Conference of Nigeria English Studies Association, Lokoja, October 26 – 29. Paper presented: Sexual Meaning Codification in the Names of Alcoholic Herbal Drinks in Nigeria |
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