A Nigerian-American writer will be holding a lecture called “The Miracle of Our Shared Space” at 7 p.m. on April 18 in Ice Auditorium. He will also host a discussion from 2 to 4 p.m. on April 19 in room 222 in T.J. Day Hall.

Teju Cole is a Nigerian-American writer, art historian, photographer and cultural critic. Cole has written two books, both of which have won a few awards. He is currently writing a third.

He has written articles for the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic and several other well-known American and global newspapers and magazines.

In Cole’s latest article from the New York Times website, he compared two photographers, Steve McCurry and Raghubir Singh. He criticized McCurry for capturing photographs of “false moments,” and praised Singh for shooting photos that are “a moment of truth snipped from the flow of life.”

Cole argued that Singh’s photographs show activity at the edges of the frame, which depicts a real scene in motion – no sugar coating.

McCurry’s photography, however, uses cultural embellishment “as a colorful backdrop to the fantasies of Western visitors.”

This lecture will address appropriation and how to tell other peoples’ histories as an actuality, not a fantasy. Outsiders can tell compelling stories of their visit abroad and keep the culture untarnished and the people raw.