Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, 44, Lewisburg

January 01, 2008 04:00 am

— LEWISBURG -- Professor Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, 44, (1963-2007) died after a short illness on Sunday, Dec. 30, 2007, in Lewisburg.
Emmanuel was born in Agbokete, in what was the Northern Region of Nigeria to Nigerian parents, Daniel and Rebecca, who are Igbo and devout Catholics. Because of his parents' ethnicity and religion they fled the North during the Nigerian Civil War to Nsukka, in the eastern part of the country.
Emmanuel was educated by Jesuits in colleges in Benin City, Nigeria and Kimwenza, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). He attended St. Patrick's Elementary School in Iheakpu-Awka from 1970 to 1976. In 1982 he graduated from Igbo-Eze Secondary School. From September of the same year he worked as a clerk at the Kaduna State Ministry of Agriculture in Funtua.
In 1983, Eze resigned the job and enrolled at St. Ignatius Jesuit Novitiate in Benin City. From 1985 to 1987 he studied at S. Pierre Canisius College in Kimwenza, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He then taught French language at Bishop Kelly College in Benin City for an academic year before moving to New York. He received his master's (1989) and Ph.D. (1993) from Fordham University.
In 1993 Emmanuel joined the philosophy faculty at Bucknell University, and in 1995 married Katherine. Together they had three children, Udoka, Amaka, and Nnamdi. In 2000, Emmanuel moved to Chicago, Illinois to take up a position as Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University where Emmanuel was a well-known specialist in postcolonial philosophy. He was the founding editor of Philosophia Africana, and also published influential postcolonial histories of philosophy in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. From 1996-7 he was a post-doctoral visiting scholar at Cambridge University, UK (1996--1997). He also held visiting appointments at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, the New School for Social Research, New York (1997) and at the University of Cape Town, Republic of South Africa (2003). His latest book, "On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism" will appear posthumously with Duke University Press.
Emmanuel is survived by his three children, Udoka, Amaka, and Nnamdi, their mother, Katherine Faull, and by his extensive family in Nigeria.
A private graveside service will be held at the Lewisburg Cemetery.
The family is being assisted by the Cronrath-Grenoble Funeral Home, S. Second and St. Louis streets, Lewisburg.