The Audrey Richards Annual Lecture in African Studies is named after the path-breaking anthropologist Dr Audrey Richards, who established the Centre of African Studies Cambridge in 1965.
The inaugural lecture was held in 2010 by the late Chinua Achebe to an audience of over 600 people.
The annual lecture has been held every academic year since then by a prominent African speaker. The lectures have been generously supported by the A G Leventis Foundation. The inaugural lecture by Chinua Achebe was also generously supported by Mr. Hakeem Belo-Osagie.
Previous speakers have been:
- Professor James Ferguson; Give a Man a Fish: From Patriarchal Productionism to the Politics of Distribution in Southern Africa (and Beyond), 2015
- Professor Keith Hart; Waiting for Emancipation: The Prospects for Liberal Revolution and a Human Economy in Africa, 2014
- Professor Sylvia Tamale; Exploring the Contours of African Sexualities: Statutory, Customary and Religious Laws, 2013
- Professor Simon Gikandi; The Formation of African Intellectuals, 2012
- Professor Chinua Achebe; Nigeria’s Promise, Africa’s Hope, 2010