Stephen Arnold Declared ?Friend of Africa?

Abstract

Shordy after he stood to present the Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare the 1998 Fonlon-Nichols Award at the 1998 African Literature Association conference opening ceremonies?with an encomium w ich itself rose to Osundarean heights?Steve Arnold received special recognition of his own, a surprise citation of thanks from the Association for over twenty years of dedicated service. At the conference Steve later announced his phased retirement from ALA functions. The effects of aging pugilist syndrome from concussions sustained in his youth and hypoxic encephalopathy from surgery in his middle age have slowed him, but he will remain among us. Editor ofthe ALA Newsletter and then Bulletin from its inception in 1978 and of a large number of its annual Proceedings, Steve is krlown among Africanists in North America and abroad for his unstinting labors on behalf of African studies and African culture, and also for his wry and often selfdeprecating humor, exemplified by his expression of relief that the ALA did not bequeath him a donkey and the twenty acres he fears he might have to work after being putting out to pasture so soon. It was a bittersweet moment for many present, who will miss his steady hand at the plough, and doubtless for Steve himself, whose withdrawal from academic life has come much earlier than he would have preferred. A few short weeks before, that retirement was marked by another sur? prise. On 28 February at the University of Alberta campus during the closing ceremony of the First Annual Society Conference in the Twenty-First Century, attended by the Canadian Federal Minister for and Latin America, Mr. David Kilgour, Steve was presented with the inaugural University of Alberta Society Friend of Africa Award in recog? nition of his contributions to African studies at the University of Alberta and the world, and of his achievement as a distinguished scholar of African literature. In the citation read by the Vice-President (Academic), he was described as a unique colleague whose impact was also felt by the University of Alberta administration during nearly a decade as Associate and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. Steve came to Edmonton in 1970, shordy after taking his doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Oregon. He was among the first to offer courses and seminars on African literature at the University of Alberta, and went on to serve as Director of the African and Caribbean sec? tion of the Research Institute for Comparative Literature. Over the years, hundreds of students have been inspired by his love and knowledge of Africa, and many of his graduate students have made reputations of their own as Africanists and comparatists. He is also on the Editorial Board of this journal. A cosmopolitan in the best sense of the word, Steve, who now calls