The ALA Lecture Series presents
“Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress: Inspiration from Chinua Achebe’s Proverbs”
Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town
Saturday, January 23, 2021 at 11:00 AM EST; London, 4:00 PM; Lagos, 5:00 PM; Johannesburg, 6:00 PM; Nairobi, 7:00PM
Join us on the ALA YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaYYHGM8iraoQF48xeCnMKw
This lecture explores what we could learn about being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress from how Chinua Achebe adopts and adapts Igbo proverbs in his writings. I am particularly interested in how being African is claimed and denied in history, socio-anthropologically, and politically. Achebe found in proverbs a powerful resource of complicated repertoires from which he has drawn to nourish his characters and oil their experiences and relationships, depicting their multi-facetedness and celebrating their humanity.
For more information:
Professor Akinwumi Adesokan at adesokan@indiana.edu
Professor Ghirmai Negash at negashg@ohio.edu
Professor Matthew H. Brown at web@africanlit.org