Simon Gikandi
James Ogude
Ndirangu Wachanga
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ
Mumbi wa Ngũgĩ
Ndũcũ wa Ngũgĩ
Nyambura Sallinen
Wangũi wa Goro
Karen Lawrence
Colette LaBouff
Angela Davis
Adriana Johnson
Mukul Kumar
Carla Wilson
Paa Kwesi-Heto
Akosua Adomako Ampofo
Chimee Adịọha
Baba Badji
Jaye Austin Williams
Cilas Kemedjio
Anindo Marshall
Kwame Rĩgĩĩ
Nii Armah Sowah
Sela Adjei
Victor Nani Agbeli
Mumbi Ngũgĩ
Fred Moten
Jimmy Centeno
Idza Luhumyo
Bwesigye Bwa-Mwesigire
Rah Hite
Tyrus Miller
Jane O. Newman
Jerry Lee
Ketu Katrak
Gabriele Schwab
David Theo Goldberg
Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan
Cecelia Lynch
S. Ama Wray
Munyao Kilolo
Glaydah Namukasa
Joel Veenstra










Baba Badji





Baba Badji is a Senegalese-American poet, translator, researcher, and an Assistant Professor on the tenure track in the French and English Department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Badji’s interdisciplinary research and teaching interests focus on the networks between various aspects of postcolonial studies, theory, and practice, with particular emphasis on Francophone cultures, comparative literature and poetry, Négritude, French theory, translation studies, poetics, postcolonial literature and theory, decoloniality, Black France, literary criticism, Africa, and creative writing. Besides English and French, he is fluent in Wolof, Manding, and Diola, and he merges these languages into his writing. Badji is a co-founder of The Dakar Translation Symposium, an annual five-day international academic conference held at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. He also co-founded The Global Black Studies Humanities Workroom at Rutgers New Brunswick and The Center for Translation Studies, Writing, Culture, and Literature at Assane Seck University in Ziguinchor, Casamance, Senegal. Badji’s first full-length poetry manuscript, Ghost Letters, was longlisted for the 2021 National Book Awards.




The Celebration of the Life and Work of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is made possible through the support of the:

UCI Office of the Chancellor
Dean of the School of the Arts
Dean of the School of Humanities
Dean of the School of Social Sciences
Humanities Center
International Center for Writing and Translation
UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality
Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
Office of Inclusive Excellence
UCI Illuminations: The Chancellor's Arts & Culture Initiative
Alex Glasser The Center for the Power of Music and Social Change
Department of Anthropology
Department of Comparative Literature
Department of Drama
Department of English
Department of Dance

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Organized by:

Adriana Johnson
Jane O. Newman
Gabriele Schwab
Ketu Katrak
Jerry Lee
Cecelia Lynch
S. Ama Wray