Griot Newsletter: April 20, 2026

Dear Griot Colleagues, Family and Friends,

Greetings!
As the weather rapidly warms and the final weeks of the semester are upon us, we want to take the time to acknowledge a few achievements of students and faculty. While we will miss the thought and energy of the three graduating seniors next fall, we are excited for them because they have completed honors theses and senior design projects and have been admitted to graduate programs at Stanford and the University of Oregon for the fall! 

Our final event of the semester is coming. Please join us on April 28 for a panel from 11:30-1:00 to celebrate the research all of the Griot interns have been engaged in this year. The presentations reflect the critically engaged research and project planning each student has spearheaded and taken leadership on this year. The hour and a half will be thought-provoking, and lunch will be served to sustain you. See attached flyer, lower in the newsletter.

Summer is coming, and so is Juneteenth! Please stay tuned for updates on the programming around this celebration.

Faculty have shared news of new publications, summer research plans, and book prizes! Our Advisory Board members will be renewing their thinking, conducting research and conferencing over the summer in Montreal, Singapore, Brazil, Germany, France, Colombia, and Spain! 

We have three important publication updates. Dr. Nina Banks has recently completed a coedited volume and submitted the final draft to the publisher. Former Griot Advisory Board member Dr. Hiram Smith has a book that will be coming out shortly with Georgetown University Press. We will hold a book launch event on campus in the Fall Semester, so please stay tuned for updates. Professor Ben Barson’s book has won another award, this time from the Caribbean Philosophical Association! Barson’s book garnered the 2026 Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award. This is in addition to other important recognitions that include Winner of the 2025 Robert M. Stevenson Award, presented by the American Musicological Society (AMS); Winner of the Harry and Claire Brook Award, bestowed by the Harry Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation (The Graduate Center of The City University of New York); Finalist for the MAAH Stone Book Award, bestowed by the Museum of African American History (2025); Honorable mention for The Portia K. Maultsby Prize, granted by Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM); Winner of the 2026 Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award, granted by the Caribbean Philosophical Association; and Honorable Mention for the 2026 IASPM-US Woody Guthrie Book Award. 

The Griot Institute’s Spring 2026/2027 Speaker and Artist Series, Pan-Africanism: Global Freedom Movements & Unrealized Promises, explores Pan-Africanism as a theory and approach for understanding interconnected struggles for liberation across Africa and its Diasporas. At a moment when global solidarity is both urgently needed and actively contested, this series brings together scholars, artists, activists, and community organizers to examine how African people worldwide have built networks of resistance, solidarity, and imagination that transcend national borders. The series centers art, culture, spirituality, and community-level organizing as integral to liberation movements, recognizing that freedom struggles are not only political and economic — they are also aesthetic, spiritual, and deeply human. By drawing on Francophone, Lusophone, Spanish-speaking, and Indian Ocean African Diaspora perspectives alongside Anglophone traditions, the series asks us to think more expansively about what Pan-Africanism has meant, what it means today, and what it might yet become.

Central Questions we are thinking about include:

•      What can we learn from figures like Ella Baker, Mary McLeod Bethune Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, and C.L.R. James about building coalitions that transcend national boundaries?

•      How do Francophone, Lusophone, Spanish-speaking, and Indian Ocean African Diaspora movements inform our understanding of global freedom struggles?

•      What are the promises and challenges of forging meaningful transnational alliances in our current global order?

•      How do art, spirituality, and culture function as engines of Internationalist thought and practice?

If you are interested in partnering on this theme or want to co-sponsor any events, please reach out to us at griot@bucknell.edu. There is still some space in our schedule if you are thinking of a guest artist, academic, or community-engaged activist you would be interested in adding to our program. Please contact us by May 15, 2026 with ideas or names of guest speakers. 

We have planned for a film series, book group(s), The Dancing Mind Challenge, as well as speakers who will address Pan-Africanism from a mix of geographical perspectives that include the Caribbean, Africa, the West and do cover the intersections of African languages with Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone, Spanish, and Italian historical experiences.

Kind Regards,

Cymone Fourshey, Professor of History and International Relations
Director of The Griot Institute

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:

The language of freedom: Interview with Esther Ohito
An Interview with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens
An Interview with Genesis Butler
An Interview with Joshua and Emily Culbreath (Snack Break Movement Arts)
Youth from African Diasporas Panel
Dr. Esther Ohito Talk
“Medical Bondage” Book Group
Deirdre Cooper Owens on Medical Racism and Reproductive Justice
Da’Mirah Vinson Thesis Defense
“Don’t Hate Me ‘Cause I’m Pretty”: Dr. Winnifred Brown-Glaude Talk

Griot intern contributors:  Debra Gonkpah ’26, Lily Hebda ’27 (graduate student and editor), Grace Ifiegbu ’26, Holiness Kerandi ’26, Jesse Leon ’28, Ahmed Omo ’28, Lucas Reid ’29, Da’Mirah Vinson ’26, and Najwa Waysome ’28.