Purdue News
Purdue News
|
|
October 8, 1999 BCC Cultural Arts Series: Messages behind masksWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Ancient Egyptology expert Theophile Obenga will present his lecture and slide show, "African Masks: Their Aesthetics and Philosophy," Wednesday, Oct. 20, as part of the Black Cultural Center's Cultural Arts Series. The free lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in Room 214, Stewart Center. Obenga, the chairman of the Department of Black Studies at San Francisco State University and co-founder of the Association for Nubian Kemetic Heritage, was born in Congo, Equatorial Africa, educated in Belgium, France and the United States. He is considered one of the foremost students and followers of the late Cheikh Anta Diop. In the preface to Obenga's most renowned book "Africa in Antiquity," Diop introduced him as follows: "Obenga is a polyvalent scholar with a threefold training as a philosopher, historian and linguist and knowing Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian and practicing Arabic and Syriac. More importantly, his is the first Black African of his generation able to read the pharaonic language in the texts." During the 1974 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Colloquium on "The People of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Writing" held in Cairo, Obenga and Diop successfully demonstrated the significant black African influence on pharaonic Egypt's culture and civilization, a landmark event in African studies. Under Marien NGouabi's government in the Congo, Obenga was director of the Ecole Normale Superieure where he created a method for teaching African historiography and later became minister for foreign affairs. He is presently director general of the International Center for Bantu Studies in Libreville, Gabon. It is the only high-tech African-oriented database and culture center of its kind focusing on the Egypto-Bantu world. Obenga is the author of a massive scientific production partly published by "Presence Africaine" and including "Precolonial Central Africa" and " Zaire: Traditional Civilizations and Modern Culture." CONTACT: Renee Thomas, BCC director, (765) 494-3091, rathomas@hfs.purdue.edu
|
