Music, Empire and Norms in African Context

Mamadou Diawara, professor of history and anthropology at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, will interrogate the story of American Blues and its putative African roots through the music of the late Malian “Bluesman” Ali Farka Touré. He will discuss the trajectory of oral music in Africa and the struggle it must now carry on against the written word in the cultural context that first generated it.