Chinua Achebe and Africa in the Global Imagination

On February 18, 1975, the great African writer Chinua Achebe presented a Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Massachusetts, entitled ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.’ The lecture was subsequently published in the Massachusetts Review, and since that time it has become celebrated and iconic: a remarkable moment both in literary criticism, and in a broader cultural assessment of how Africa has been perceived and represented in the Western world. In making his case, Achebe challenged the entire framework in which works of art would be judged, and in which the discussion of Africa would be sustained.

To mark the fortieth anniversary of this epic moment, as well as the fortieth anniversary of the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series at the University of Massachusetts, the Interdisciplinary Studies Institute hosted a symposium devoted to the impact of Achebe’s lecture and its continuing legacy. The symposium aimed to commemorate the event itself and its significance, as well as to bring the discussion into the present by reconsidering both Achebe’s importance, and the shape of things today in terms of the issues he raised.