Chinua Achebe. Photo: ©2007 Frank Fournier
After Chinua Achebe: African Writing and the Future
Honoring the Memory of the Late Chinua Achebe (1930–2013)
Friday, September 22, 2023
Campus Center, Weis Cinema
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
This event occurred on:
Join us for After Chinua Achebe: African Writing and the Future, an event honoring the memory of the late Chinua Achebe (1930–2013), former Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature.
A symposium in the afternoon in the Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora. The symposium will be followed by the dedication of a room in the Stevenson Library at Bard in memory of Achebe.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 22, with a dance performance by Souleymane Badolo celebrating the life of Achebe, followed by an opening address by President Leon Botstein. There will be two panel discussions, Writing Beyond Africa: The African imagination in the diaspora at 2:30 pm, and Activism and the Word: Writing, speech, and song in African political culture at 4 pm. Confirmed panelists include the novelists Nuruddin Farah, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu, and Fatin Abbas, and the musician and activist DJ Switch.
The event is sponsored by President's Office, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Stevenson Library, Africana Studies, and the Offices of the Dean and Alumni/ae Affairs. Members of the Achebe family will be in attendance, and the event is free and open to the public.
Chinua Achebe was a groundbreaking Nigerian writer best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous other books, including works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. From 1990 to 2009 he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
A symposium in the afternoon in the Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora. The symposium will be followed by the dedication of a room in the Stevenson Library at Bard in memory of Achebe.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 22, with a dance performance by Souleymane Badolo celebrating the life of Achebe, followed by an opening address by President Leon Botstein. There will be two panel discussions, Writing Beyond Africa: The African imagination in the diaspora at 2:30 pm, and Activism and the Word: Writing, speech, and song in African political culture at 4 pm. Confirmed panelists include the novelists Nuruddin Farah, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu, and Fatin Abbas, and the musician and activist DJ Switch.
The event is sponsored by President's Office, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Stevenson Library, Africana Studies, and the Offices of the Dean and Alumni/ae Affairs. Members of the Achebe family will be in attendance, and the event is free and open to the public.
Chinua Achebe was a groundbreaking Nigerian writer best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous other books, including works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. From 1990 to 2009 he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.