Modern Historical Scholarship in Nigeria: Digital Age, Challenges and the Quest for Prospects

Abstract

This study entitled “Modern Historical Scholarship in Nigeria, Digital Age, Challenges and the Quest for Prospects” has been carried out to examine the role, relevance and impact of Digital Age on contemporary Historical Scholarship with a special reference to Historiographical Methods of Research, Historical Teaching and Learning aspects. The whole scholarly effort herein purely centres on an attempt to explore the nature, essence and extent of favoritism of Modern Educational gadgets/technologies to the academic life of the generality of historical studies, scholars and students. In the course of conducting the study, a very good number of relevant sources were used for data collection, presentation and analysis, aimed at producing a balanced study. The interest of the subject matter is to highlight the significant role of educational technologies in the digitization and revolutionazation of Historical Scholarship as well as its tremendous contributions in generating a chain of new trends in Historical Research, and reawakening of intellectualism. The study argues that it is consequent upon the advent of Modern Educational Technologies and their application that brought about an increasing rate in the emergence, rise and influence of the class of intelligentsia, students and scholars of high philosophical minded idealism. The study further found that technological advancement under review also led to the formation of several schools of Historical thought, re-birth of the generation of Modern Historical Philosophers consequent upon the development of divergent views. Furthermore, the ideological concepts of Post Modernism, Formalism and Structuralism also got prominence and continue to gather momentum within the academic communities and beyond. However, the last but not the least is the point of the identification of some major impediments militating against the progress of the subject matter under review. Among the obstacles include; the failure of the authorities concerned to rise against the responsibilities ahead of them, neurological effects of educational technologies, drug addiction, brain damage, eye defect, absence of moral and financial supports to state but a few out of the multitude number of problems confronting this subject matter