Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at NYU, in New York and Abu Dhabi. He’s written three novels and many works of philosophy. His most recent books are Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (Harvard University Press), and A Decent Respect: Honor in the Lives of People and of Nations (University of Hong Kong).
He reviews regularly for the New York Review of Books, and has spoken often in public lectures in Europe, Africa and the Americas about topics in literature, philosophy, and African and African American studies. For a number of years he was Chairman of the Freedom to Write Committee of the PEN American Center, and he co-edited the Dictionary of Global Culture and Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African-American Experience.
Professor Appiah is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and chairs the Board of the American Council of Learned Socie