Griot Institute Annual Series

Each academic year the Griot Institute offers the Bucknell Community an annual series that focuses on a question or issue of concern central to Africana Studies. An academic course is offered to students in conjunction with the series. The series seeks to explore and examine the various questions of concern to Africana Studies interdisciplinarily in terms of their historical and contemporary resonances and significances. The series interrogates these questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives and employs the expertise and artistry of guest lecturers and performers in order to navigate their intellectual nuances and moral and ethical dimensions. The series is open to the university community and the general public. Most events are followed by a question and answer session and a book signing by the guest lecturer or artist. The public is invited to join our explorations.

  • Jonestown Reconsidered


    2013 marks the 35th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy. The Jonestown narrative engages fundamental questions of religion, race, nationality, power, civil rights, sexuality, poverty, aspiration, and identity that are not disconnected from the dilemmas of the present moment. In the spring of 2013, the Griot Institute offered an interdisciplinary series that examined the narratives that surround the Jonestown massacre from multiple perspectives.

  • Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson


    In Spring 2012, the Griot lecture and event series Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: An American Origin Story explored and examined the various narratives of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson in terms of their historical and contemporary resonances and significances.

    The series offered multiple disciplinary perspectives and employed the expertise and artistry of guest lecturers and performers in order to present the various nuances and dimensions of the tale.

     

  • FACEing Race


    In Spring 2010, visiting artist E. Patrick Johnson (Chair of the Performance Studies Department at Northwestern University) led students and staff in a three-day performance workshop. The workshop resulted in participants performing monologues concerning issues of race, gender, and identity in the 21st century as part of an interactive artistic installation.

    Another main feature of the installation was visual art and poetry on the same theme, created by students in the courses of Professors Fennell, Gillespie, Long, Martincich, McCallum, Peterson, Ponnuswami, and Williams. E. Patrick Johnson closed the event with a performance of his one-man play, Pouring Tea.