Olanrewaju Lasisi

Olanrewaju Lasisi is a Mellon Race, Place, and Equity Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, in the Department of Architectural History. His research explores the complex relationship between astronomy, architecture, ritual, and power within the Yoruba cultural landscape. He brings together methodologies from architecture, ethnography, performance genre, archaeology, oral history, and archaeoastronomy, weaving an interdisciplinary framework that offers fresh perspectives on architectural spaces and their cultural, historical, and astronomical significance. Lasisi is currently working on two book projects. The first, "Yoruba Archaeoastronomy," dives into the methodological exploration of ancient astronomy in indigenous societies, using Yoruba as a case study. It elucidates how practices of observing the heavens were encoded in Yoruba architecture and indigenous hermeneutics such as ritual movements, toponyms, and oral poetry. His second book, "Architecture of Ritual Movements," recontextualizes our understanding of physical architecture by emphasizing the enduring nature of ritual movements as architectural elements in their own right.