Cultural Heritage and Identities in Africa: Examples from the Kushite Kingdom of Sudan to the House of W.E.B. Du Bois in Ghana
date & time
Location
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
New York, New York 10028
United States
The Paul Mellon Lecture is made possible by the Paul Mellon Education Fund.
Join philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah for a reflection on the cultural heritage of Africa, from the Nubian pyramids of Sudan to the Koutammakou Cultural Landscape in Benin and Togo, and the redesign of the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Complex in Ghana. The lecture will address the complex and varied interactions between cultural heritage and questions of identity, memory and community in various African countries. It will also consider how new spaces are being created today, like the Du Bois Museum Complex, highlighting the relationship between place, memorialization, and time.
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will discuss WMF’s efforts to preserve the tomb of Taharka at Nuri in Sudan; the Koutammakou Cultural Landscape on the border of Benin and Togo; the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia; and the Historic Sites of Kilwa in Tanzania. Professor Appiah is a WMF Trustee and a member of the Visiting Committee for the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About the Paul Mellon Lecture
Inaugurated in 2003, the Paul Mellon Lecture is supported by the Paul Mellon Education Fund and enables audiences to learn about critical issues in the field of cultural heritage.
Past Mellon Lecture speakers include Kent Weeks discussing the challenges of tourism management in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt; Charles Dempsey on the history of the Carracci Gallery in the Farnese Palace in Rome; Anna Somers Cocks on the impact of ever-increasing tourist numbers in Venice; and Iwan Baan offering the audience a glimpse into the intricacies of his photographic process, capturing culture with intimate detail and profound emotion.
Cultural Heritage and Identities in Africa: Examples from the Kushite Kingdom of Sudan to the House of W.E.B. Du Bois in Ghana
date & time
Location
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
New York, New York 10028
United States
The Paul Mellon Lecture is made possible by the Paul Mellon Education Fund.
Join philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah for a reflection on the cultural heritage of Africa, from the Nubian pyramids of Sudan to the Koutammakou Cultural Landscape in Benin and Togo, and the redesign of the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Complex in Ghana. The lecture will address the complex and varied interactions between cultural heritage and questions of identity, memory and community in various African countries. It will also consider how new spaces are being created today, like the Du Bois Museum Complex, highlighting the relationship between place, memorialization, and time.
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will discuss WMF’s efforts to preserve the tomb of Taharka at Nuri in Sudan; the Koutammakou Cultural Landscape on the border of Benin and Togo; the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia; and the Historic Sites of Kilwa in Tanzania. Professor Appiah is a WMF Trustee and a member of the Visiting Committee for the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About the Paul Mellon Lecture
Inaugurated in 2003, the Paul Mellon Lecture is supported by the Paul Mellon Education Fund and enables audiences to learn about critical issues in the field of cultural heritage.
Past Mellon Lecture speakers include Kent Weeks discussing the challenges of tourism management in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt; Charles Dempsey on the history of the Carracci Gallery in the Farnese Palace in Rome; Anna Somers Cocks on the impact of ever-increasing tourist numbers in Venice; and Iwan Baan offering the audience a glimpse into the intricacies of his photographic process, capturing culture with intimate detail and profound emotion.
About The Speakers
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist currently teaching at the College of Arts and Science and the Law School of New York University. He has previously taught at Princeton, Harvard, Duke, Cornell, Yale, Cambridge Universities, and the University of Ghana. Appiah has written widely on the philosophy of mind and language, ethics and political philosophy, and the philosophy of art, of culture, and of the social sciences. He has also published works in the field of literary studies, where his focus has been on African and African-American literature and literary theory and he writes the weekly Ethicist column for the New York Times Sunday magazine. His publications include In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (Oxford University Press, 1993); Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Norton, 2006); Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (Harvard, 2014); and The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity (Norton, 2018). He is the President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Related
Koutammakou, Land of the Batammariba
Historic Sites of Kilwa
Events
Amphithéâtre Liard
17, rue de La Sorbonne
75005 Paris
France
Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre
Victoria & Albert Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
United Kingdom
The New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
New York City