Nigerian author, poet, critic, and essayist, Chinua Achebe, will visit the Indiana campus of the University of Notre Dame, March 23-26, 2009, to deliver the 2009 Blessed Pope John XXIII Lecture Series in Theology and Culture.The three part lectures will be on GOD, Man, and Creation, and will be published later this year by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Professor Achebe’s visit is sponsored by the Departments of Theology, English, Africana Studies, and the African Students Association.
The Blessed Pope John XXIII Lecture Series in Theology and Culture has been described as “an important contribution to the post-9/11 debate on religions, cultures, and societies, and are first-rate lectures finely attuned to their moment.”
Professor Achebe, who is the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature (currently on leave from Bard College to complete two books); is the author of over 20 novels, short stories, collections of essays and poetry, as well as children’s books. He is best known for the novels often described as the African Trilogy “Things Fall Apart”, “No Longer at Ease” and “Arrow of God”. In addition to the publication of GOD, Man, and Creation, readers can also expect another Achebe collection Reflections of a British Protected Child, from Anchor Books this year.
In perhaps his greatest work, Arrow of GOD, Achebe introduces his readers to the complexity of a rich African tradition. Employing an abounding, multifaceted, layered narrative style, Achebe inserts the reader into the tensions that develop between the views, motives, and forces that have shaped Ezeulu; the chief priest of Ulu, his rivals in the tribe, in the white government, and even in his own family. Surrounded by trouble, Ezeulu adopts an increasingly cosmic view of events - surely in the battle of the deities, he finds himself humbled, reduced in stature and influence, merely, he concludes, “an arrow in the bow of his God?”
In his scholarly essay “Chi in Igbo Cosmology” Achebe suggests that: “Since Igbo people did not construct a rigid and closely argued system of thought to explain the universe and the place of man in it, preferring the metaphor of myth and poetry, anyone seeking an insight into their world must seek it along their own way. Some of these ways are folk tales, proverbs, proper names, rituals, and festivals.
Achebe was raised as an Anglican (the Church of England) “his father was a catechist in the Christian Missionary Society “was equally interested in exploring his ancient African religious and cultural traditions.
His literary works explode with this creative tension and he provides an important “outside” perspective on theological issues often ignored or submerged by the pervasive “universal”, cultural debates.
The University of Notre Dame is pleased that he is participating in this conversation on the world stage.
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(Source: DS)