GREETINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR
March 24, 2025
Dear Griot Friends and Family,
We hope you are all enjoying the arrival of spring weather and light. This spring is particularly significant as it marks the 177th since Bucknell opened in 1846 and the 150th year since Edward Brawley graduated as the first African American to matriculate at Bucknell. There are several opportunities across campus to commemorate Brawley’s historic presence at the university. He studied here during a time of legal regression for Black people in the United States, particularly as Jim Crow Laws were established, which would serve as the overt
framework for nearly a century (from the 1870s to the 1960s). These laws caused significant political and economic losses for generations, further compounding the deprivation already faced by Black laborers during centuries of enslavement in North America and the United States.
If you were unable to attend the Coco Fusco lecture last week, you can request access to the video if you have a Bucknell login. Alternatively, you can read intern blogs for insights and photos from the events. This newsletter includes links to the intern blogs detailing past Spring Series speaker events (with presentations from Stephanie Jones, Monica Cox, Ephraim Asili, and Coco Fusco) and also serves as a reminder of the few remaining Griot Institute events this academic year.
This week, The Griot Institute is hosting a
conference and welcoming Wendy Thompson to campus for a reading and the launch of her debut poetry collection,
Black California Gold. This work offers a compelling history of survival and resilience across generations of migrants in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Those familiar with the region and its migrant histories will recognize the contemporary issues of “dispossession and displacement.” According to Raina León, “Thompson invites us into a new black, poetic cartography, one that extends from earth into the skies in its content; it is alive with poetic experimentation and risk.” Books will be available for purchase at the event, and Thompson will be signing copies for
those who would like a signed edition.
This book signing coincides with the Griot conference, Decolonial Education and Liberatory Learning, taking place on Friday and Saturday, March 28-29. The conference will begin with a lunch led by students who will present and discuss their ideas on the subject, engaging the audience in conversation. Please visit the conference website for a schedule of presenters, which includes Bucknell students, faculty, staff, and guest participants. Those interested in joining this discussion are welcome to register and attend all or part of this exciting interdisciplinary conference. Registration is free. There are a few co-sponsored events in April noted below.
Sincerely,
Cymone Fourshey
Professor of History and International Relations Director of The Griot Institute for the Study of Black Lives and Cultures
The Griot Intern Blog
For insights, reactions and detailed information on past Griot Institute events, please read our intern-authored blogs throughout the academic year. The blogs also include many updates and reports on what is happening around campus in connection to Black lives and cultures.
Newest Blog Posts:
- Black to the future by Holiness Kerandi ’26
Upcoming Events
The Griot Institute Spring 2025 Conference:
Decolonial Education and Liberatory Learning
March 28 – 29, 2025
Find details on the Conference Website and register now to attend.
Registration is open for the Griot Institute Conference, Decolonial Education and Liberatory Learning, which will take place March 28 and 29. The conference has been organized to bring together a group of scholars, artists, and practitioners at all stages of career and life who are interested in the intersections of these particular subjects in Africa and its Diasporas historically over the longue durée or in the contemporary world. One important aim is to facilitate a dialogue across the various academic and professional disciplines through a collection of panels, roundtables and performances that discuss participants’ scholarship, essays, artistic creations, lesson plans, activist work, or other experimental genres on decoloniality, education, liberation, and/or learning.
If you have any questions, please contact griot@bucknell.edu.
Book Launch: Black California Gold with poet Wendy M. Thompson
Friday, March 28 at 1:30 – 2:30 pm
Walls Lounge, Elaine Langone Center (2nd floor)
West African Drumming Lessons
Mondays, 4:30 – 5:30
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
West African drumming lessons are continuing through the semester! This opportunity is free of charge and is open to the Bucknell community, as well as the public. No experience is necessary and instruments are provided.
Because we have a limited number of instruments, please register by emailing griot@bucknell.edu.
About the instructor: Urie Kline is a versatile percussionist active across Central Pennsylvania. He first began studying West African drumming — specifically the Jembe and Dunan tradition of the Mande — in 2015. His educational experiences include masterclasses under both Dr. Djo Bi (Ivory Coast) and M’bemba Bangoura (Guinea). He has taught Mande drumming during his World Drumming course at Lycoming College since 2018 and started instructing at The Griot Institute in 2022.
Cosponsored/ Campus & Community Events
Cosponsored Event: Gospel Music at Bucknell
March 29, 3 – 5 pm; March 30, 11 am – 12 pm
Rooke Chapel
Documentary Film Screening, Black Russians: The Red Experiment by Yelena Demikovsky, followed by the Q&A with the film director
Wednesday, April 2 at 7:00 pm
Rooke Chemistry 116
The Griot Institute is cosponsoring with BHC series on “Narrating Russia’s Empires” Documentary Film Screening, Black Russians: The Red Experiment by Yelena Demikovsky, followed by the Q&A with the film director. Black Russians explores the lives of the black Americans who escaped persecution in their native America and dreamed of finding a better life for themselves in the unlikeliest of places: Stalin’s Soviet Union. During the years of the Great Depression, around 200 black Americans whose lives were marred by discrimination and segregation left their homeland, hoping to find a new life in the fledgling communist Soviet Union. Some of them never returned to America. Others came back determined to make a change. This is their story.
Watch the trailer here!
“You’re Not Alone: Angela Davis and the Soviet Dreams of Freedom”
Thursday, April 3 at 4:30 – 6:00 pm
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
The Griot Institute is cosponsoring, with the BHC series on “Narrating Russia’s Empires,” a talk titled “You’re Not Alone: Angela Davis and the Soviet Dreams of Freedom,” by Professor Maxim Matusevich, Department Chair in History at Seton Hall University. Matusevich is the author of No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations (Africa World Press, 2003) and Russiain Africa, Africa in Russia: Three Centuries of Encounters (Africa World Press, 2007). Prof. Matusevich has published extensively on the history of the Cold War in Africa, the history of African-Russian/Soviet encounters, and the history of African-American and African travel in the Soviet Union.
Griot Events on MediaSpace
If you have Bucknell credentials, you can log into MediaSpace to see the Griot Institute’s collection of recordings. If you missed guest speaker Dr. Monica Cox on February 26, you can now access a recording of her talk, Moving Beyond Diversity Initiatives to Authentic Equity: A Call to Accompliceship. This recording is available until May 23, 2025.
About the Griot
To check event dates, subscribe to the Griot Institute Public Event Calendar
Email: griot@bucknell.edu
Phone: 570-577-2123
Location: Hildreth-Mirza, 2nd Floor
Hours: Monday – Friday, 8:00am – 3:00pm or by appointment
Director: C. Cymone Fourshey | Program Manager: Michelle Lauver
