This year marks the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, and “The House” – as the center is widely known on campus – will celebrate with a conference, Oct. 17–19, featuring presentations by alumni, faculty, and students focused on the theme “Inspiring Global Leadership in the 21st Century.”
Organizers describe the event as a showcase of “prominent intellectuals, industry leaders, and emerging talents” who have passed through the cultural center and “an opportunity to explore the legacy of this institution first hand and experience our alumni and students discussing topics of vital importance to our collective communities across the world.”
Highlights of the weekend include a keynote conversation with acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ’08 M.A. When Adichie was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, she was lauded as “a young writer who illuminates the complexities of human experience in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria” and “a writer of great promise” whose “powerful rendering of the Nigerian experience is enlightening audiences both in her homeland and around the world.” Her most recent novel “Americanah” was named one of The New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her novel “Half of a Yellow Sun” won the Orange Prize, and her novel “Purple Hibiscu”s won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
