MIAMI, Fla. – Saheed Aderinto, an award-winning Nigerian-American author and professor of History and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University, has been honored for his work.

Aderinto recently was awarded the prestigious Dan David Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the study of history and includes a $300,000 cash prize, the world’s largest in the field.

The selection committee commended Aderinto, 45, for situating African history at the cutting edge of diverse scholarship in the history of sexuality, nonhumans and violence, noting that it is exceptional to see a single person leading in all of these fields.

Aderinto, who is the founding president of the Lagos Studies Association, said his approach to learning and teaching history and African Diaspora Studies is interpretation and scrutinizing the interconnectedness of events and movements to help people better understand the world in which they live.

“History is more than facts," he said. "It’s much more complex in terms of the stories and events of the past. It’s not looking at a particular phenomenon from one angle. I want to look at different parts of the angle, different possible directions.”

He said the David prize adds to his success with award-winning literary works and short films about African Diaspora Studies.

Aderinto has published eight books, 36 journal articles and book chapters, 40 encyclopedia articles and 20 book reviews.

"While $300,000 is a lot of money, the true value of the Dan David Prize is not the cash per se but what it would help me do for my students and mentees, FIU, global infrastructure of knowledge, and communities of practice,” he said. “Hence, the award is about my scholarly achievement as much as about FIU and the communities I represent."

Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, Aderinto completed his elementary education at Adeen International School in 1990 and secondary school at Ibadan City Academy in 1996.

He then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Ibadan in 2004 before moving to the United States, where he earned his master’s and doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.

Aderinto began his teaching career at Western Carolina University and moved to Miami when he was hired to teach African History at FIU in 2022.

He said his teaching philosophy is incorporating various branches of history to create encompassing narratives about African colonial histories.

Aderinto’s philosophy is chronicled in several of his books including a novel that focuses on his native Nigeria and challenges conventional narratives.

“My desire is to conduct work no one else has ever done,” Aderinto said.

My agenda is to look at a particular historical phenomenon from a dimension that it has not been explored … to look at this phenomenon in a completely different way. I’m always in search of originality.”

His first book tackled sexuality’s relationship to colonialism, a work that won him the 2016 Nigerian Studies Association’s Book Award Prize for the “most important scholarly book on Nigeria published in English language.”

His book on guns in colonial Nigeria revealed that guns were not just arms of violence in Nigeria. They were domesticated into Nigerian culture and became an important element of Nigerian identity.

And his book on animals looks at them as colonial subjects, thereby “expanding the frontier of colonial subjecthood beyond humans.”

Aderinto said the history of the Lagos Studies Association dates back to 2016 when he co-organized a conference on Lagos with Abosede George, a professor at Barnard College in New York, and Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, a professor at University of California at Riverside.

Participants at the conference noted the significance of having an organization to harmonize the works of academic and non-academic practitioners of Lagos.

In 2017, Aderinto led the establishment of the LSA as "an international, interdisciplinary organization of academic and non-academic practitioners whose interest focuses on Lagos and its peoples.”

The LSA organizes the annual Lagos Conference held in Lagos (Nigeria) and holds panels at international conferences of the African Studies Association of the United States and the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom.

Aderinto said he’s now focusing on a documentary on Fuji music, which is a popular Nigerian genre.