Peyibomi Soyinka– Airewele is also renowned scholar just like her father, Wole Soyinka. She is one of the three daughters of the first African recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1986.
Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, is a Professor of African and Comparative/International Politics at Ithaca College in New York, USA with interests in the fields of socio-political memory, the politics of disaster, critical development theory, human rights and the politics of African Cinema. Her publications include Socio-Political Scaffolding and the Construction of Change, co-edited with Kelechi Kalu (Africa World Press, 2008), Reframing Contemporary Africa, co-edited with Kiki Edozie (CQ Press 2009) and Invoking the Past, Conjuring the Nation.
Her work on democratic development, collective memory and cathartic violence has been published in several scholarly journals including the Journal of African and Asian Studies, the Journal of Third World Studies and West Africa Review. Dr Soyinka-Airewele received her PhD in International Studies from the University of Birmingham, U.K and prior to joining Ithaca College, she taught at Colgate University, New York
Peyi is the first black woman to earn tenure at Ithaca college and later, promotion to full professor. In 2008, she was elected to serve as the first female President of the Association of Third World Studies Inc. and Co-Vice Chairperson of the Ithaca City of Asylum (2007-8).
She has served as the International Director of ACT Africa, the first female Vice-President and President of the Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Co Vice-President of the Ithaca City of Asylum, and is currently the President of the African Studies and Research Forum, Inc. Her current research engages the socio-political discourses of popular African cinema and their fluid interpretations of transforming identities and issues in global and local spaces.
