Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart & No Longer at Ease - Hertog Foundation

Nigerian literary giant Chinua Achebe is celebrated as the father of modern African literature. In this seminar, fellows will read two novels from his famed “African Trilogy” – his groundbreaking first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), about the tragic downfall of the Ibo warrior Okonkwo, and its sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), about Okonkwo’s Western-educated grandson who returns to Nigeria for a job in the colonial civil service.

In following the lives of the Okonkwo family – from the first contact of European colonists to the waning days of the British Empire – fellows will reflect on the complicated relationship between African tradition and Western influence, the ravages of corrupt governance, and the challenge of moral agency when different belief systems overlap and compete.

Image Credit: Door; Lintel, Olowe of Ise, The British Museum

Martha Bayles on American soft power

Faculty

Martha Bayles

Martha Bayles is an Associate Professor of Humanities at Boston College, where she teaches a year-long course titled, “From Homer to Dante” and various senior seminars. Her research centers around popular culture and cultural history. She has previously served as a lecturer at Harvard University and Claremont McKenna College.

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