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Harvard Du Bois Institute

The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University is the nation's oldest research center dedicated to the study of the history, culture, and social institutions of Africans and African Americans. Founded in 1975, the Institute serves as the site for research projects, fellowships for emerging and established scholars, publications, conferences, and working groups. Named after the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard (1895), the Du Bois Institute also sponsors four major lecture series each year and serves as the co-sponsor for numerous public conferences, lectures, readings, and forums.break

http://dubois.fas.harvard.edu/

Truth vs. Style: Challenge of Valaida Snow

Wed, Oct 5, 2005

Candace Allen discusses her first novel, *Valaida*, based on the life of entertainer and jazz trumpeter Valaida Snow.

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Nobel Laureates Honor Wole Soyinka

Wed, Apr 27, 2005

Toni Morrison and other Nobel Laureates read in honor of the 70th birthday of literary giant and human rights activist Wole Soyinka. Wole Soyinka, born near Ibadan, Nigeria, is world renowned for his numerous dramatic works, novels, essays, and poems. Known for his outspoken criticism of the Nigerian government, especially during its civil war, Soyinka appealed in an article for a cease-fire between opposition groups and the government. As a result, he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Currently, the first Alphonse Fletcher Fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Soyinka received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986 and participated in the evening's festivities by reading from his own imaginative and groundbreaking work. Hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., director of the Du Bois Institute, the event features some of the world's literary masters reading from their work. In addition, A Season of Laureates includes individual introductions by Homi F. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenburg Professor of English and Literature, Harvard University; novelist Jamaica Kincaid, Visiting Lecturer on African and African American Studies and Literature, Harvard University; K. Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University; and Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Cosponsored with the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

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Tour of Duty: How to Write About Africa

Tue, Feb 28, 2006

Michael Vazquez of Transition Magazine hosts an evening with the next generation of African and African American writers. Cosponsored by Transition Magazine, Granta and the Virginia Quarterly Review.

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Re-Membering Africa: Planting European Memory on Africa

Tue, Mar 14, 2006

Ngugi wa Thiong'o explores the resistance of African memory to European capitalist modernity's attempts to bury it under Europhonism. The resurrection of African memory is seen as part and parcel of the African renaissance and Afro-modernity. In all three lectures, he draws on the experiences of other cultures, the European Renaissance and the Irish Experience particularly, to draw parallels, comparisons and contrasts. In this lecture, Ng_g_ wa Thiong'o talks of the historical, economic, political and psycho-cultural fragmentation of the continent by slavery and colonialism, arguing that the search for wholeness is the animating force in the continental and Diasporan-African (contiafrican and Diafrican) struggles. This lecture is a part of a series of lectures called Re-Membering Africa: Burial and Resurrection of African Memory.

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Re-Membering Africa: Retrieval and Exchange of African Memory

Wed, Mar 15, 2006

Ngugi wa Thiong'o explores the resistance of African memory to European capitalist modernity's attempts to bury it under Europhonism. The resurrection of African memory is seen as part and parcel of the African renaissance and Afro-modernity. In all three lectures, he draws on the experiences of other cultures, the European Renaissance and the Irish Experience particularly, to draw parallels, comparisons and contrasts. In this lecture, wa Thiong'o looks at remembering political, intellectual and literary visions like Pan-Africanism and the practices of African writing, and examines their limitation in their relationship to the African linguistic means of memory. This lecture is a part of a series of lectures called Re-Membering Africa: Burial and Resurrection of African Memory.

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Re-Membering Africa: Memory, Restoration and African Renaissance

Thu, Mar 16, 2006

Ngugi wa Thiong'o explores the resistance of African memory to European capitalist modernity's attempts to bury it under Europhonism. The resurrection of African memory is seen as part and parcel of the African renaissance and Afro-modernity. In all three lectures, he draws on the experiences of other cultures, the European Renaissance and the Irish Experience particularly, to draw parallels, comparisons and contrasts. Here, Ngugi looks at the much talked about African Renaissance arguing that the economic, political and cultural re-membering of Africa is the real basis for the flowering of the African Renaissance. The reconnection with African memory and its means of being is seen as crucial. In short, the resurrection of African memory is seen as necessary for the African renaissance. This lecture is a part of a series of lectures called Re-Membering Africa: Burial and Resurrection of African Memory.

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Social Inclusion of Disenfranchised People

Fri, Apr 30, 2004

Benedita da Silva talks about how she has fought to prioritize racial, class, and gender issues within both Brazil's political institutions and the Workers' Party, and how she has opposed discrimination against women and blacks. Note: A translator is present in this lecture to translate from Portuguese to English.

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Africa in the Soul: Continent Severely Wounded

Tue, May 4, 2004

Emmanuel N. Obiechina discusses the upheavals that led to the mass expatriations of millions of Africans.

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Living Black History: Resurrecting Intellectual Tradition

Tue, Apr 20, 2004

Manning Marable describes his theoretical approach to the writing of African history and the construction of black studies, which is directly connected with living history. He argues that oppressed people in the United States generally think about their living history very differently from those closer to centers of institutional power. Because of the difficult circumstances of their lives, the oppressed often celebrate myth over factual accuracy. No black poets have written about Clarence Thomas or Condi Rice, but entire books, films, symphonies, and even an opera have been composed about the life of the heroic figure Malcolm X.

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Living Black History: Preserving Malcolm X's Legacy

Wed, Apr 21, 2004

Manning Marable asks what happens to a movement when its most celebrated heroes, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. are transformed into commercial brands.

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