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In his Marrow of African American Literature class, Professor Vincent Odamtten wants students to see that African American writers, in describing their own experiences, are writing about the American experience.

An essay by Professor of Literature Vincent Odamtten appears in Illuminations on Chinua Achebe: The Art of Resistance, published by Africa World Press, Inc.

Professor of English and Creative Writing Vincent Odamtten discussed Nnedi Okorafor’s “Who Fears Death: Telling Trauma, Telling Justice” at the 42nd annual conference of the African Literature Association (ALA) held April 6-9 in Atlanta.

Professor of English and Creative Writing Vincent Odamtten was an invited speaker at Syracuse University on Oct. 17 for the Chinua Achebe Symposium: A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Arrow of God.

Professor of Africana Studies Vincent Odamtten presented two papers at the African Studies Association meeting in Philadelphia in November. The first paper, “Men at the Table: Ama Ata Aidoo’s Feminist Invitation” was part of a roundtable, “The Literary Artist as Public Intellectual: The Example of Ama Ata Aidoo.”

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten recently participated in two conferences. In May he presented “Story-Telling as Performance: From No Sweetness Here to Diplomatic Pounds” at the “Gender, Creative Dissidence and Discourses of African Diaspora Colloquium in Honor of Ama Ata Aidoo” at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California at Santa Barbara.

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten presented the first Dr. Robert Milton Young Memorial Lecture in African American Literary and Cultural Theory on Jan. 27, at the University of Alabama. The recently established lecture series honors Robert M. Young ’90 who died in January 2010. Odamtten was Young’s mentor while Young was a student at Hamilton. In “The Pleasures of Influence and Reciprocity” Odamtten spoke about his professional relationship with Young.

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten was a participant in the symposium “Conversations in Africana Writing: Ama Ata Aidoo, a celebration and tribute,” at Brown University on Nov. 4. The symposium addressed the theme of Ghanaian histories and contexts.

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten presented a paper on "Selected Ghanaian Writing from a Pan-African Perspective" at the 5th Biennial Conference of Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) in Accra, Ghana, in August.

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten was one of two guests on Wisconsin Public Radio's show "Here On Earth" on July 13. The program was focused on Ghana's place in Africa, President Obama’s visit to the country and what Africans can expect during the Obama administration. Odamtten, a native of Ghana, said that he thought Obama’s speech was well balanced with good points but he asked, “Will words be followed by deeds?”