News
Kofi Agawu in residence as Astor Visiting Lecturer
The Faculty of Music welcomes Professor Kofi Agawu of Princeton University as Astor Visiting Lecturer.
Professor Agawu will be giving his principal lecture on Tuesday 26 October in the Denis Arnold Hall, starting at 5.15pm, on the topic of 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Tonally'. All are welcome, and admission is free.
On Thursday 28 October he will be leading a seminar in the African Studies series at St Antony's College, which begins at 5.00pm and takes place in the Fellows' Dining Room. During the week Professor Agawu will also be giving a graduate seminar in the Faculty of Music and will have meetings with Oxford colleagues.
Professor Agawu is a renowned authority on music theory (especially semiotics and topic theory) and aspects of African music. His publications include Playing with Signs: a Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton, 1991), African Ryhthm: a Northern Ewe Perspective (CUP, 1995), Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions (Routledge, 2003), and Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (OUP, 2009).
Professor Agawu is also a member of the Oxford-Princeton Partnership in Music Theory and Analysis, supported by the John Fell Fund. The Partnership's first symposium took place in Oxford this April, and Oxford faculty and graduate students will travel to Princeton next March for the second meeting.
Professor Agawu will be returning to Oxford for the whole of the 2012/13 academic year as George Eastman Visiting Professor.
Earlier this year Kofi Agawu was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.