Meet the Ghanaian professor who has been elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Professor Anthony Kwame Appiah, a Ghanaian academician at the New York University, has been elected president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Professor Kwame Appiah announced in a Twitter post that he received the voting of members of the Academy to become the president.

He will hold the position for the next three years and steer the affairs of the prestigious academy.

“Honored and delighted to be elected the new President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It will be both a pleasure and a challenge to serve the Academy’s purpose to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts.”

Kwame Appiah is a professor of Philosophy at the New York University and a columnist of the New York Times.

A publication by dailynous.com profiles Professor Appiah as someone whose academic works focus on political philosophy, race, identity and culture.

He has served on a number of prestigious institutions and organizations, including board chairman for the Man Booker Prize Committee; a member of the judging panel for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture; board chairman of the American Council of Learned Societies; member of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Democracy Fund, and member of the New York Public Library Board.

In terms of awards, Professor Kwame won the Quinn Prize award in 2020, among others.

Professor Appiah is believed to be a son of the famous Ghanaian lawyer Joe Appiah. Lawyer Joe Appiah was an active member of Ghana’s independent fight and is remembered as the first Ghanaian to marry a white lady in a church wedding.

About American Academy of Arts and Letters

The background on their website reads “the American Academy of Arts and Letters is an honor society of the country’s 300 leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Each year it elects new members as vacancies occur, administers over 70 awards and prizes, exhibits art and manuscripts, funds performances of new works of musical theater, and purchases artwork for donation to museums across the United States.