Noted African author, filmmaker, academic speaks here March 2

Diawara

As part of its Black Authors/New Books series, initiated this past spring, Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center will host Malian author and filmmaker Manthia Diawara, Tuesday, March 2. The talk is free and open to the public.

Diawara, professor of film and comparative literature and director of the Institute of African American Affairs at New York University, will speak at the Africana Studies and Research Center in the Hoyt Fuller Room, 310 Triphammer Road, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. He will be reading from his new book We Won't Budge: An African Exile in the World (New York: BasicCivitas Books, 2003), which is part autobiography and part social commentary. A book signing and reception at the center will follow his talk.

A native of Mali, Diawara is the second author in the Africana Center's new series of book receptions and readings by African and African American authors. The goal of the series is to generate discussion and intellectual excitement around new publications covering issues related to African and African Diaspora studies and creative writing.

A former director of Africana Studies at New York University, Diawara also was a visiting faculty member at the School of Theory and Criticism at Cornell's Society for the Humanities in the summer of 2002. He has published widely on the topics of film and literature of the Black Diaspora. He is the author and editor of several books, including: In Search of Africa (Harvard University Press, 2000); African Cinema: Politics & Culture (Indiana University Press, 1987), and he is the editor of Black Genius: African American Solutions to African American (1999); Blackface (1999); Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader (1996); and Black American Cinema (1985). His documentary films include "Rouch in Reverse," "Bamako Sigi Kan" and "Conakry Kas."

Diawara received his education in France and later traveled to the United States for his university studies. He received his B.A. (1976) from American University and his M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1985) from Indiana University. He also has taught at the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Pennsylvania.

For more information on Diawara's visit, contact Salah Hassan, acting director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, associate professor of Africana studies and chair of the Department of History of Art, at 255-0528 or sh40@cornell.edu.