Griot Institute celebrates culture

By Carolyn Williams

Contributing Writer

The University’s Griot Institute for Africana Studies, which launched in January, has an exciting semester planned to conduct an interdisciplinary exploration of culture and art. Griot is a traditional West African figure that functioned as a storyteller, historian, artist and spokesperson, according to the Griot Institute for Africana Studies mission statement.

Professor of English Carmen Gillespie is the new program director. “We’re hoping to fill a niche that will enable interdisciplinary staff, students and community to discuss and explore these topics together,” she said.

This year, the Griot Institute has already hosted a welcome back performance by Soul in Motion, an African dance and drumming troupe. Emily Conners ’14 attended the event. “It was really interesting to see a form of dance from another area of the world. It’s great that Bucknell celebrates different cultures.”

The Griot Institute also organized the Facing RACE Installation last February. Students and faculty created various forms of written expression, including poetry, nonfiction writing and journal entries that explored their perceptions and personal definitions of race. The three-hour event concluded with a one-man show by E. Patrick Johnson, a performance artist and chair of the department of performance studies at Northwestern University.

According to Gillespie, one of the Griot Institute’s aims is to make possible “not just lectures, but interactive events which bring together constituent bodies, examining more in-depth, pondering questions.”

The program hopes to introduce interdisciplinary prospective courses to complement a series of lectures by staff members and guest speakers. One topic for these classes, currently under consideration, is the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.

In October, the Institute is planning a group-read inspired by writer Toni Morrison. In a speech given by the Nobel Prize winner, titled “The Dancing Mind,” Morrison worries that as a society we have lost the ability to disengage ourselves at length from our electronic “necessities” and simply read a book that we were not assigned. Today, pressured by busy schedules and increased expectations, many people have let the art of pleasure reading fall by the wayside.

University students will try to take Morrison’s advice this October by gathering to read for eight hours straight. Gillespie calls this “deep reading,” and says that practicing extended readings of unassigned books is a critical part of sustainable life and intellectual engagement. The date and location of this event are currently undecided.

In the semester since its formation, the Griot Institute has had the support of over a thousand students, faculty and staff members, as well as individuals from the Lewisburg community. The Institute looks forward to hosting a number of events throughout the rest of the school year, open to the public.

“Our long term goal is to help to tell the story of Africana studies in a way that will help Bucknell come away with new answers and new questions,” Gillespie said.