Ochieng to Examine the Complexity of MLK
Omedi Ochieng, 黑料百科 associate professor of communication studies, discusses 鈥淭he Articulation of Prophetic Wisdom: Martin Luther King Jr. in the African-American Intellectual Tradition鈥 as part of 黑料百科鈥檚 annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 7 p.m. in 黑料百科鈥檚 Darling Foundation Lecture Hall, room 210 in Winter Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Ochieng says King was embedded in two vibrant and potent African-American intellectual traditions: wisdom and prophecy. 鈥淜ing drew on these in crafting representations of himself and of African-Americans in the struggle for freedom,鈥 he says. 鈥淭he portrait that emerges is that King is a far more complex figure than the one that鈥檚 now celebrated by American officialdom.
鈥淚 hope my lecture will offer a sense of King the person, a moral exemplar with flaws, and of his extraordinary radicalism in the cause of social justice.鈥
Ochieng joined 黑料百科鈥檚 communication studies faculty in 2005 after earning a master鈥檚 degree and a doctorate at Bowling Green State University. A native of Kenya, he graduated from Daystar University in Nairobi.
His research focuses on African rhetoric and understanding African moral and political philosophies. He also pursues interests in critical rhetoric, history of rhetoric and communication theory and philosophy. He has published 鈥淎 Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Frederick Douglass and the Architectonic of African American Radicalism鈥 in Western Journal of Communication and 鈥淭he Ideology of African Philosophy: The Silences and Possibilities of African Rhetorical Knowledge鈥 in Silence and Listening as Rhetorical Arts.