By: Chris Abani
I have an uncle who always responded to a greeting with, “Here you meet me again.” Always with a wide smile and an occasional chuckle. “Here you meet me again.” That smile and that phrase became over the years a touchstone for constancy, as in, “I’m always here, the same as always and open to you.” For the commitment to a core belief in the idea of remaining steadfast and to ride all the storms of life with a smile. As a young person, I always admired his stoicism and his good humor, which in my mind equated to: I will remain the same always. I must not have noted the tiredness around his eyes or the weight loss or the other signs of wear and tear that come with weathering life. It is not that he was always the same, but that he adapted to whatever conditions he found himself dealing with, while remaining constant to an inner core, and inner commitment.
That is one of the ways I have grown to appreciate African studies at Northwestern. As the oldest program of its kind in the United States, it does feel like it has always been here, and there is some truth to that. What is not true though is that it has always been the same even if our human tendency to nostalgia can make us believe that. Maybe the illusion spun by nostalgia that we are prone to is a result of needing some constancy to sustain us through the many years between research, writing, and publishing.
One of the things about academia is the tension between maintaining the status quo and pushing for change and innovation. A friend of mine once said that universities are great at archiving things, sometimes more than they are at using those archives to push for the novel, for the radical. Whether this be in research, in new media, in thinking outside the box, or in this case, the field, or even in politics. It is a tense time all around, and it seems that while constancy is needed, that need not be in the sense of the immutable. Maybe constancy in ethics and a commitment to challenge complacency. Perhaps if we look to the way the weather in the Midwest plays with seasons: summer, the front verandah of hell; fall, the dreary; the fall into winter; winter; mid-winter; false spring; gotcha spring; gotcha again; real spring; and then summer, We might learn how to be constant and not immutable. Or maybe not. Either way, we must come to terms with the fact that changes must be made; and soon.
Over the years, with restructuring in colleges, with funding restrictions, with changes in personnel, 620 Library Place, our home, has like that favored uncle, remained constant. The ever welcoming, ever evolving, brilliant community of scholars, writers, chefs, staff, curators, librarians, and more, always more, ever more, has changed over the years.
When I took over the directorship of PAS, I immersed myself in the archives and was stunned to see the rich legacy over the years and the slow sad shrinking of what was the beating heart of the African humanities here in the United States. Still, PAS surged forward under the steadfast guidance of many gifted directors and staff, surviving every budget cut, every limitation.
When I took over, Covid was raging and everything we did had to go virtual. And what could have been the end of us became a new virtual life and the opportunity to attract ever new, ever more community. This retreat into the virtual world has given us the opportunity to create a new and unique research archive soon to be revealed. And speaking of constancy, one of the staff who has been directly and indirectly part of PAS for over twenty years recently suffered an accident. From her recuperation room, she urged me to finish this message for the newsletter. Constancy. PAS has changed and will continue to change and evolve long after I am gone. But the heart of the past, the present, and the future are here, virtually, and when the light is right, physically still, at 620 Library Place. Come by and we will open the door, smile, and say, “Here you meet me again.”