The African Studies Association has announced that philosopher and cultural theorist Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah will deliver the inaugural Chinua Achebe Distinguished Lecture at the 69th ASA Annual Meeting in New Orleans. His lecture, titled “Fanon’s African Revolution,” marks the first edition of a biennial series established under the ASA Christie and Chinua Achebe Fund.

Appiah first gained widespread prominence with his 1992 book In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, which examined the misconceptions that have long clouded discussions of race, Africa, and nationalism, and argued that race is a social construct with no legitimate biological basis. Since then, his books have ranged across political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of language, and African intellectual history, among them The Ethics of Identity, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, in which he put forward a vision of global citizenship built on shared moral responsibility alongside a genuine acceptance of human difference, and The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.

In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal and he is currently Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. His engagement with Frantz Fanon, one of the twentieth century’s most consequential theorists of colonialism and African liberation, is a natural extension of a career spent interrogating what African identity means and what it demands.

The Chinua Achebe Distinguished Lecture was designed to showcase humanistic scholarship alongside creative industries spanning architecture, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, visual arts, and literature. Appiah’s reading of Fanon’s revolutionary thought fits squarely within that ambition, bringing philosophical rigour to bear on one of African intellectual history’s most urgent inheritances.

The ASA Christie and Chinua Achebe Fund was made possible by a generous gift from Drs. Christie, Chinelo, Ikechukwu, Chidi, and Nwando Achebe, and is named in honor of celebrated Nigerian author Dr. Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) and his wife, Dr. Christie Achebe two educators whose partnership and lifelong dedication to teaching, storytelling, and the empowerment of African voices have inspired generations.

Chinua Achebe’s place in the story of world literature is without parallel. His 1958 novel Things Fall Apart reached audiences in 57 languages and millions of readers globally, reshaping world literature by centering African experiences and humanity. The lecture series bearing his name carries forward a vision he articulated throughout his life: that African stories, told on African terms, belong at the center of global discourse.

The 69th ASA Annual Meeting takes place in New Orleans. Registration is open now through the African Studies Association website.