Jacob Kehinde Olupona Receives Reimar Lüst Award

Professor of African Religious Traditions Jacob Kehinde Olupona Does Research at Freie Universität Berlin. The Professor of African Religious Traditions Jacob Kehinde Olupona from Harvard University won a Reimar Lüst Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As part of the award, Olupona is spending the academic year until June 2016 doing research at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin. The award was presented in recognition of Olupona's work in comparative religion in West Africa and the West African Diaspora, as he made a unique contribution to the study of indigenous religions and the integrative role indigenous religious forces exert in social, economic, and political differentiation processes. Moreover, he made valuable contributions through teaching at various universities in Europe and Africa and intensively supporting young Nigerian and German scholars. At Freie Universität Olupona is researching new Christian movements in Nigeria as well as the role of Pentecostal churches in the development of civil society, popular culture, and public space. Jacob Kehinde Olupona was born in 1951 in Nigeria.