Dr. SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai is full professor of theology (systematic) and religious studies, and an affiliate faculty of ethnic studies at the University of Portland; a board member of the Sankofa Institute for African American Pastoral Leadership at the Oblates School of Theology; and an affiliate faculty for the graduate program at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana. He is currently a Fellow at the Westar Institute and a former Fellow at the Jesuit Institute at Boston College. He has served as a past board member of the College Theology Society and the Catholic Theological Society of America. He is a member of the editorial board for several international peer-reviewed journals in the humanities and social sciences.
His research focuses on religion, race, and identity; African approaches to ethics; African philosophies, cultures, and theologies; religion and violence; comparative theology; theological anthropology; themes in systematic theology; and interfaith studies.
He has authored over one hundred papers in national and international journals and blogs. He is the author of Fostering Interreligious Encounters in Pluralist Societies. Hospitality and Friendship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). He is the editor of Religion, Women of Color, and the Suffrage Movement: The Journey to Holistic Freedom (Lexington Books, 2022). He is the lead editor for the following works: How First-Generation Students Navigate Higher Education through An Embrace of Their Multiple Identities (Routledge, 2025); First-Generation College Students and Study Abroad (Routledge, 2025); and Pedagogies for First-Generation Students and Globalized Classrooms (Routledge, 2025).
Dr. Aihiokhai’s works have been published by Routledge, Palgrave MacMillan, Paulines Press (Africa), Oxford University Press, Lexington Press, and Cambridge Scholars Press.
Abstract
I intend to shed light on how the fragmentation of memory of self (in this context, self is in the collective to mean people) perpetuates itself in the so-called postcolonial socio-political reality called Africa. To do this effectively, I intend to articulate clearly the defining markers of coloniality of imagination that, of itself, produces an anemic sense of self and the validation of colonial oppressive structures even when the initial producers of colonial exploitation are no longer present physically. “Coloniality of imagination operates with the assumption that non-whites are incapable of possessing epistemic freedom because they are creatures without a history, without a civilization, without the correct cognitive abilities to ask questions that lead to liberation.” Furthermore, I also intend to offer some concrete approaches to overcoming coloniality of imagination in a manner that allows for a decolonial memory of surplus. By embracing a memory of surplus, I argue that an approach to the African sense of agency ought to be the norm in order to foster a culture and praxis of wholeness.