1:11 p.m., Aug. 18, 2009----The University Museums of the University of Delaware will host a two-day symposium, "Sound: Print: Record: African American Legacies," at the Louise and David Roselle Center for the Arts on the Newark campus Oct. 1-2. The interdisciplinary symposium will be held in conjunction with an art exhibition of the same name that will be on view at Mechanical Hall Gallery Sept. 2-Dec. 6.

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Both the symposium and exhibition are free and open to the public but registration is required for the symposium.

An opening reception for the exhibition will be held from 5-7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 14, in Mechanical Hall Gallery. The celebration will feature the UD Faculty Jazz Ensemble.

The symposium will open Thursday, Oct. 1, with a keynote address at 5 p.m. and evening performances beginning at 8 p.m., and will continue with panel discussions and a final closing session on Friday, Oct. 2.

"The symposium will explore how black music and its traditions are preserved, recorded, fixed and imagined by artists and scholars," said Janis Tomlinson, director of University Museums. "Performance, the creative process and the making of art are highlighted as the inspiration and content of scholarly inquiry in multiple humanistic disciplines: art and its history, musicology, literature, history and sociology."

The symposium will focus on three major themes:

• “Fixing a Legacy”: Black Music and History -- Devoted to an examination of how the history of black music is constructed, this panel will contrast the invited speakers' perspectives from within the recording industry, from the academy and from alternative non-traditional networks in order to highlight the means by which the black popular music becomes history.

• Sound/Record -- This panel will explore the technological, economic and cultural dynamics that shaped African American participation in sound recording. Considered here will be the origins, character and effects of African American sound recording and specific historical circumstances within its development.

• Art/Music/Art -- Honored here will be the spoken word, performance, the visual and the aural -- sight and sound. Invited speakers will bring focus to the varying ways in which the arts become resources for each other and how certain creative endeavors both inform and become part of the cultural legacy we assign to African American music and sound.

To register for the symposium or for more information, visit the University Museums Web site, call Peggy Lea at (302) 831-8037 or send e-mail to [universitymuseums@udel.edu].

The symposium is supported by a grant of $15,000 from the Delaware Humanities Forum, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Article by Martin A Mbugua