The first Prof. John Pepper Clark International Conference has begun at University of Lagos, Nigeria.
The conference, which started on Monday running through July 14, 2018, has as theme ‘Connecting the Local and Global Across Literary Genres.’ Its conveners are Prof. Hope Eghagha of the University of Lagos and Dr. G.Oty Agbajoh-Laoye, of Monmouth University, USA.
This international conference will address a variety of themes, ranging from the indigenous and communal, to broader contemporary issues like the African Diaspora, global Africa, the local and global, issues and dimensions across and within the micro and macro aspects of the writings of J.
P Clark.
In a statement, the organisers said that the conference was expected to be an agenda-setting event in which participants, drawn from the literati, local and foreign academic institutions as well as other institutions involved in knowledge production across the globe would map a field for J.P Clark Studies and locate the place of the poet, playwright and elder statesman in historical contemporary developments in African and Nigerian writing.
Professor Wole Soyinka is expected to give the keynote address entitled “Othello’s Lament: the Migrant Rues the Waves.” The host of the event is Prof.
Muyiwa Falaiye, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts.
Chairman and Chief-host is the ViceChancellor of the university, Prof Toyin Ogundipe, while the special guest of No doubt, in terms of success in the art, southern Nigeria has shot ahead of northern Nigeria. Therefore, to push ours forward, deliberate steps must be taken towards growth.
Little progress could be reached through arbitrary dwelling. In any case, life as a phenomenon is naturally in parts.
honour is Vanguard publisher, Mr. Sam Amuka.
Meanwhile, an eminent scholar-poet and University of Benin (UIBEN) don, Professor Tony Afejuku, has delivered a lecture at Harvard University, USA, on ‘America, Their America’, a 1964 American charming travel narrative by a foremost Nigerian and African poet, playwright and dramatist, Professor John P.
Clark. The occasion was the 42nd international gathering of the World Phenomenology Institute, which held at the Harvard Faculty Club of the University.
Phenomenologists, philosophers and scholars from Europe, Asia, Latin America, USA and Africa graced the event.
Prof. Afejuku was the only representative from Africa.
His elegant presentation, which was very well received, focused on Clark’s phenomenological aesthetics in America, Their America.
Afejuku’s paper, a significant aspect of the event’s exchanges, revitalizes interest in thebook, and stirred the emotions of especially American delegates, one of whom, a female participant, apologised, on behalf of her compatriots, to JP Clark for his rough experiences in his Parvin year at Princeton.
Afejuku will return to Nigeria shortly after concluding pertinent scholastic engagements