KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dr. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, Ph.D., Indiana University Northwest

KEYNOTE TITLE: “Journeying and Carrying my Goatskin Bag Straight: A Reflection on Igbo Cultural Values”

KEYNOTE ABSTRACT:

Ọsọ Ndu Agwụ Ike, the principal theme and flouncy title of this 23rd annual conference of the Igbo Studies Association, is an adage, an aphorism, or a proverb that denotes a general truth in Igbo culture explicated subsequently in the English post-colon, “Building a Sustainable and Resilient Future.” It is a clarion call to attendees and participants in the conference to reflect on Igbo personhood at home and abroad, about who we are, where we have been, and where we should be going locally and globally. The Keynote title “Journeying and Carrying my Goatskin Bag Straight: A Reflection on Igbo Cultural Values” exploits the conference theme partly by exploring the Goatskin Bag concept as a metaphor that iterates the imperative of crossing transnational borders armed with Igbo lessons in life’s complexities and Igbo requirements of individuals to bear their burden with dignity and respect for everyone they meet along the way, paying particular attention to Igbo values of family, community, good behavior, and conflict resolution. My Keynote will cite Igbo proverbs to illustrate lessons for the traveler, both for survival and endurance in negotiating everyday relationships. My address will teach without lecturing, nudge towards good conduct without lapsing into moralizing or prescribing behavior, stress the importance of hard work and skill acquisition over get-rich-quick syndrome, and stress the wide divide between intelligence and wisdom. Employing naturally witty proverbs, each segment of this address will above all enthrall the listener, encourage participation by attendees and participants as the community would do in traditional village story-telling sessions, call on each conference attendee or participant to ruminate on the proverbs and attempt to decipher their meanings as they apply to their individual circumstances. By extension, every Igbo person traversing the borders by land, sea, or air has thenceforth the opportunity, an obligation and personal responsibility to help to cultivate peace in place of violence and war, and respect in place of disrespect, seen the wisdom in the Igbo aphorisms that (i) Onye Ije adirọ ata aka na-enye ya nni! (you do not bite the finger that feeds you), and (ii) Oje mba enwe iro (the traveler should not make enemies).

About Dr. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, Ph.D.

Dr. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, Ph.D., literary scholar, literary critic, feminist theorist (Di-Feminism), short story writer, and researcher in literatures, languages and cultures (French and Igbo), is a long-term professor in the Humanities, currently associate faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences (COAS), teaching courses in African, African American, African Diaspora Studies (AAADS), and International Perspectives on Women in the Women’s Studies Program (WGS) at Indiana University Northwest, Gary, Indiana. For two consecutive years, 2022 and 2023, Dr. Azodo was nominated for the Founders’ Day Teaching Award, the most prestigious of all faculty achievement awards at Indiana University Northwest that honors excellence in teaching and acknowledges meaningful impact on the students and learners, knowledge of the professor’s field of teaching and research, and expertise in employment of pedagogical tools in teaching. Dr. Azodo has published books, chapters of books, and scholarly articles in refereed offline and online academic journals. Dr. Azodo’s magnum opus, L’imaginaire dans les romans de Camara Laye (Vol. 4, in the Series, Studies in African and African American Cultures, General Editor, James Hill, Peter Lang, 1993) testifies to the prevalence, importance, and significance of lessons that can be learned from African traditional societies and studies of the imaginary of the African supernatural worlds. Africa World Press published Azodo’s books on gender, women, and classical Francophone and Anglophone writers, including Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariama Bâ, Aminata Sow Fall, Mariètou M’Baye Biléoma (a.k.a. Ken Bugul), Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa. Goldline and Jacobs Publishers published African Feminisms in the Global Arena: Novel Perspectives on Gender, Class, Ethnicity, and Race (2019), and Resident Alien and Other Stories: An Anthology of Immigrant Voices from Africa and the African Diaspora (2020). Azodo’s latest book publication in the textbook genre and literary criticism subgenre is titled, Literary Criticism Reevaluated: Challenging a Rigid Creative-Critical Dichotomy (Globe Edit, January 2026). The work calls for reassessment of African imagination, its significance and value in (re)telling the peoples’ stories through creativity and criticism alike, employing rigorous studies of Igbo cultural values. Literary Criticism Reevaluated has now been reprinted in translation in several other European languages. In 1992, Dr. Azodo was awarded a Chieftaincy title, ‘Ada-di-Ebube,’ Distinguished Daughter, by her natal community of Ngene Village, Amawbia, Anambra State, Nigeria, for her sterling leadership qualities. In 1994, the public library of the Town of Rochester, State of New York, recognized and inducted Dr. Azodo as a Friend of the Rochester Public Library.