Wolfgang Bender (ethnologist)

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Wolfgang Bender (born March 30, 1946 in Mallersdorf , Lower Bavaria) is a German ethnologist . He has been an honorary professor at the University of Bayreuth since 2013 and conducts research in the fields of modern African music, art and literature. He founded three ethnomusicological archives at German universities. Since 2014 he has been in charge of his own Bembeya archive for the music and cultures of Africa in the Northwest Palatinate.

Life

Bender spent more than a year in Nigeria as a student and was enthusiastic about the music and art of the era of independence. From 1968 to 1978 he studied ethnology with a focus on modern Africa at the University of Frankfurt am Main . He visited there u. a. also the events of the German Africa-literature translator and "promoter" Janheinz Jahn . In the meantime he went to the School of Oriental and African Studies (1972/73) in London on a DAAD scholarship to learn the Yoruba language. 1973/74 followed a research stay in Nigeria, the results of which led to the dissertation: Colonialism, Consciousness and Literature in Africa. On the change in the consciousness of the Yoruba in western Nigeria through colonialism from 1850 to the present day, shown in literary documents, especially in examples from oral literature.

Archives and research

Between 1980 and 1986 he built the Iwalewa House , the Africa Center of the University of Bayreuth, together with Ulli Beier , to whom he owes his access to popular art and literature in Africa. In addition to exhibiting at the Iwalewa House (including the first presentation of the Rastafarian art collection acquired in 1980 for the Übersee Museum in Bremen ), a music archive for modern music from Africa was set up there.

From 1986 to 2008 he worked at the Institute for Ethnology and African Studies at the University of Mainz , where he founded the Archive for Modern African Music (AMA ) in 1991 . Numerous research trips to African countries and publications.

The ethnologist Gerhard Kubik exerted a considerable influence on the research of Wolfgang Bender, particularly through his music-ethnological work.

Regional focus : West Africa: Sierra Leone, Nigeria; Central Africa: Congo / Zaire; East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania; South. Africa: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa; Lusophones Africa: Angola, Mozambique. Anglophone Caribbean.

Research focus : early record productions in African countries, popular art and cultures in Africa, Africa in Europe, African music festivals in Europe.

The importance of the Greek merchants in the development of Congolese dance music in the 1940s was brought to the public through his research with the founders of the Ngoma record label in the Belgian Congo, the Jeronimides brothers.

His book Sweet Mother. Modern African music was the first overview work on popular music in Africa in Germany, and the American translation became the standard work at universities in the USA.

In 1998 he was at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna with the habilitation thesis : The Nigerian highlife . Habilitation in music and art in popular culture of the 50s and 60s .

In Ethiopia after 2000 he was able to make a contribution to the musical history of Ethiopia in close collaboration with Tadele Yidnekatchew, the grandson of the musician Tessema Eshete , who released around 17 shellac records at Beka / Odeon in Berlin from 1908 to 1910 .

From 2008 to 2011 he was the founding director of the Center for Worldmusic at the Hildesheim University Foundation. This connected him with the life and work of the ethnomusicologist Wolfgang Laade , whose collection is archived and digitized there. Since 2013 he has been associated with the Iwalewa House of the University of Bayreuth as an honorary professor and is establishing the private Bembeya Research Institute for African Music and Culture in Desloch near Meisenheim.

Wolfgang Bender's extensive publications clearly reflect his research interests: They deal with topics from the areas of popular culture, such as hairstyles, clothing / fabrics, painting, literature and, above all, music.

Backup of recorded African music

  • 1986: Transfer of the entire shellac record inventory of the radio archive of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS) - today Corporation: SLBC - with funds from the Federal Foreign Office. Thereupon further projects with the support of cultural preservation, mainly digitization:
  • From 1990: Malawi at approx. Two-year intervals, recording of Malawian music (cooperation with Moya Aliya Malamusi, Oral Literature Research Program);
  • 1993–96: Ghana, Institute of African Studies Archive (Simeon Asiama);
  • 1997: Nigeria, Archives for Music Foundation of Nigeria (Bayo Martins);
  • 2000: Jamaica, The Jamaican Folk Music Collection (Markus Coester);
  • from 2008: Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) (Markus Coester);
  • since 2012 digitization of the archives of CRTV (Cameroon Radio and Television Service) (Joachim Oelsner).

Exhibition activity (selection)

  • 1980: Development and supervision of the exhibition of the Ulli Beier Collection New Art in Africa in Mainz at the Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum and at the University of Bayreuth (Steno House).
  • 1980 - 1986 at the Iwalewa House, Bayreuth, among others: 1982 Popular Art of Ethiopia and 1984 Art of the Rastafarian Jamaica. The latter was then shown in Tübingen, Erlangen, Recklinghausen, Berlin, at the Völkerkundemuseum of the University of Zurich and by the ethnographic department of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. From October 1985 the Rastafarian exhibition (until 1990) was part of the permanent establishment of the Übersee-Museum in Bremen.
  • 1985: Establishment of two traveling exhibitions Senegal to Zambia - New Art from Africa and Popular Art from Freetown, Sierra Leone. 1986: Conception and realization of the Freetown Popular Art exhibition in Freetown .
  • 1987: Liberia exhibition in the Völkerkunde Museum der Stadt Freiburg i. Breisgau.
  • June 1987: Enjoy Yourself , exhibition of popular paintings from Freetown, Sierra Leone by the Ethnological Museum of the City of Freiburg, collection, documentation and realization.
  • 1987: Freetown, Sierra Leone, conception and text for the photo exhibition 200 years of Freetown.
  • 1988: Exhibition of African memorabilia in the German Foundation for International Development (DSE), Bad Honnef. Collection, documentation and realization.
  • 1988: Exhibition of Popular Painting from Freetown, Sierra Leone in St.Gallen, Switzerland.
  • 1987/88: Preparation of the exhibition Art from Another World at the Ethnological Museum in Rotterdam. Development of the conception and structure of the Sierra Leone part.
  • 1992: Rastafarian art exhibition at the House of World Cultures in Berlin.
  • 1991/92: Participation in the planning of the exhibition of pictures by the Congolese, then Zairian artist ChCheri Sambari Samba in Frankfurt ( Portikus ), Basel ( Kunsthalle ) and Munich ( City Museum ).
  • 1994: Exhibition: Tingatinga. Modern square painting from Tanzania. Merseburg Cultural History Museum.
  • 1995: Exhibition: Scenes from the everyday life of square painters from Tanzania . Cultural History Museum, Merseburg.
  • 1995: Implementation of two projects as part of the African Art exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich (Prof. Dr. M. Szalay): Cheri Samba (Zaire) and Sokari Douglas-Camp (Nigeria-London).
  • 1996: Exhibition: Textile Art of the Yoruba from Nigeria . Frankfurter Hof, Mainz .
  • 1996: Exhibition: Tingatinga - Modern Square Painting from Tanzania . African Caribbean, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
  • 1998: Exhibition: Memorabilia from Africa . Town hall in Fellbach.
  • 2000: Century City , Tate Modern , London, Lagos section by: Okwui Enwezor /: Olu Oguibe; Music installation.
  • 2001: The Short Century. Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994 . Munich, Berlin, New York; by: Okwui Enwezor; Music installation.

Publications

Fonts (selection)

  • Colonialism, Consciousness, and Literature in Africa. On the change in the consciousness of the Yoruba in western Nigeria through colonialism from 1850 to the present day, shown in literary documents, especially in examples from oral literature. Publications from the Übersee-Museum Bremen, 1980, Series F, Bremer Afrika-Archiv Vol. 10 (= dissertation).
  • with K.Frederking (Ed.). Tar and temples, poems and texts from Jamaica by Gil Tucker , Zurich: Unions Verlag 1980.
  • Rastafarian art from Jamaica. (Ed.) Bremen: Edition Con1984
  • Sweet mother. Modern African music. Munich: Trickster Verlag 1985
  • Perspectives on African Music (Ed.), Bayreuth African Studies Series No. 9, 1989
  • Rastafarian art from Jamaica. (Ed.) Edition Con Berlin 1992
  • The Nigerian highlife. Music and Art in Popular Culture of the 50s and 60s . Wuppertal: Edition Trickster published by Hammer Verlag 2007.
  • A Reader in Africa-Jamacain Music - Dance - Religion together with Marcus Coester (ed.). Ian Randl Publishers. Kingston. Jamaica. 2015
  • The work of the poet Christopher Okigbo, Nigeria, in its significance for the world document heritage . In: World Heritage and Arts Education (No. 13). University of Paderborn. November 2015. pp. 41–55. digital edition ( https://kw.uni-paderborn.de/fach-kunst/kunst-und-ihre-didaktik-malerei/internetzeitschrift-world-heritage-arts-education/ )

Records / CDs

  • Sierra Leone Music. West African Gramophone Records Recorded in Freetown in the 1950s and early 60s. Berlin Zensor 1987. (as LP, CD and TK)
  • Ngoma - The early Years 1948 - 1960. African Music Archive Mainz together with Popular African Music, Frankfurt 1996. pamap 101. (as CD)
  • Ngoma - souvenir ya l´indépendence. African Music Archive Mainz together with Popular African Music, Frankfurt 1997. pamap 102. (as CD)
  • Music in Ghana. A selection of traditional music from the archive of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. African Music Archive Mainz together with Popular African Music, Frankfurt 1997. pamap 601. (as CD and TK)
  • Donald Kachamba´s Kwela Band. African Music Archive Mainz together with Popular African Music, Frankfurt 1999, pamap 103. (as CD)
  • From Lake Malawi to the Zambezi. Moya Aliya Malamusi. Aspects of Music and Oral Literature in South-East Africa in the 1990s. African Music Archive Mainz together with Popular African Music, Frankfurt 1999, pamap 602. (as CD and TK) (received the German Record Critics' Prize, June 2000)
  • Cabo Verde. Ilhas do Barlavento. Music from Sao Nicolau. Popular African Music, Frankfurt, Popular African Music Archive Production, 2000, pamap 603. (as CD)
  • Ettu, Mento, Revival, Kumina… Recordings from The Jamaican Folk Music Collection Popular African Music Archive Production 2006, pamap 701/702. (as CD)
  • Endangered traditions - Endangered creativity. A CD / DVD Documentation by Moya Aliya Malamusi. Popular African Music 2011, pamcwm 801.
  • Musique du Cameroun. Double DC. CETV (Cameroun Radio Télélevision), Youndé. Popular african music. Frankfurt. Copam 810/811. 2016

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Other editions: Sweet Mother. Modern African Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990 La Musique Africaine Contemporaine. Sweet mother. Paris: L'Harmattan 1992 Enjoy Yourself. Popular painting from Sierra Leone, West Africa. Munich: Trickster Verlag 1987 Cheri Samba. (Ed.) Munich: Trickster Verlag 1991 Sweet Mother. Modern African music. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag 2000
  2. ↑ Rastafarian Art from Jamaica. (Eds.) Kingston: Jan Randle Publishers 2005
personal data
SURNAME Bender, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ethnologist and Africa scientist
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Mallersdorf , Lower Bavaria