Ryan Skinner, School of Music and Department of African American and African Studies, and Filmmaker Dani Kouyaté will give a lecture on “Dialogue as Humanistic Inquiry.”
This lecture will introduce the collaborative writing project, Openings: The Life, Work, and Worldview of a Cinematic Griot, co-conceived and composed by musical anthropologist Ryan Skinner and filmmaker Dani Kouyaté. A leading figure in contemporary African cinema, with nine feature films and documentaries to his name, Kouyaté is also a griot — a Mande (West African) oral historian and verbal artist. Skinner is the author of two books on Africa and its diaspora: Bamako Sounds: The Afropolitan Ethics of Malian Music (2015) and Afro-Sweden: Becoming Black in a Colorblind Country (2022), both published by the University of Minnesota Press. Based on eight years of conversation and intellectual exchange, the book is a curated collection of dialogues between Skinner and Kouyaté that center the latter’s cultural heritage, creative practice, transnational lifeway, and humanistic philosophy. Skinner will begin by presenting the project, its methods, and a survey of its content. Then, following the dialogic structure of the project, Skinner and Kouyaté will discuss their joint work and Kouyaté’s latest feature film, Katanga: The dance of the scorpions, a West African adaptation of Macbeth. For those interested and available, Katanga will be premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts at 4 p.m. on Monday, September 23.
Inaugural lectures celebrate Arts and Humanities faculty who have been promoted to the rank of professor. All lectures are held in the Faculty Club Grand Lounge from 4-6 p.m. and are preceded by a reception and followed by Q&A and discussion. All lectures are free and open to the public.
The Arts and Humanities Inaugural Lecture Series is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.