Nduka Otiono has been officially appointed as the next Director of Carleton University’s Institute of African Studies, Canada’s leading Institute of African Studies. The appointment will take effect on July 1, 2022, and will be a three-year term.
The announcement was made by Pauline Rankin, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Carleton University, and it was adorned with an accurate description of Nduka Otiono’s work and contribution to the university.
Otiono was first appointed as Assistant Professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in 2014. He became the first appointee when the university newly established the Institute of African Studies.
He is an Associate Professor at the Institute of African Studies whose work spanned creative writing, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and performance and literature in Africa. He has had a series of publications that include his recent publications: the co-edited volume of essays, Polyvocal Bob Dylan: Music, Performance, Literature (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2021).
Otiono is an experienced writer that has authored quite a lot of literary works like The Night Hides with a Knife (a collection of short stories), which won the ANA/Spectrum Prize; Voices in the Rainbow (a collection of poems), shortlisted for the ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize; and Love in a Time of Nightmares (a collection of poems), which won him the James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship award in Creative Writing.
While reacting to the development, Otiono says he accepts the appointment and the call to serve as the new Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University with humility. He further disclosed that he never thought he would be appointed director seven years after joining the unit as the first full-time faculty member on tenure track in 2014 as the previous directors were all selected from outside of the institute.
Otiono expressed his willingness to embrace the duty and indulge the cooperation of the local and international community and partners for the important support required to improve the institute.
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