The 2024 Betty Bowe Castor Lecture

The 2024 Betty Bowe Castor banquet and Lecture took place on October 5th in the Chamberlain Student Center.  The audience of alumni, students, and staff celebrated six of the original participants in Operation Uganda and helped raise funds for Operation Uganda Renewed, supporting a current student from Uganda.  The keynote speaker was Middlebury College's Damascus Kafumbe, an ethnomusicologist, teacher, performer, composer, producer, filmmaker, and instrument technician. He teaches ethnomusicology and performance courses, directs an African music and dance ensemble as well as an Afropop band, and maintains the college’s Ugandan musical instrument collection. Kafumbe previously directed the African Studies Program and served on various committees, including the International and Global Studies Program Steering Committee, the Faculty Strategy Committee, the Black Studies Steering Committee, and the Faculty Advisory Board for the Cameroon School. Kafumbe’s scholarly interests span diverse fields, including African studies, performance, history, philosophy, politics, ritual, spirituality, and social organization. He researches the royal court music of Buganda, and his books on the subject include Tuning the Kingdom: Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Storytelling, and Politics in Buganda (University of Rochester Press, 2018) and Power Relations in Court Song: Lyrical Meaning and Political Life in Uganda (University of Rochester Press, 2024). Kafumbe is also the director of the documentary film Drum Making as a Way of Life in Southern Uganda (Alexander Street Press, 2020). His professional service includes serving on the Ethnomusicology journal Editorial Board and the Society for Ethnomusicology Board of Directors. He is also the Music Book Review Editor of the Yearbook for Traditional Music journal and co-editor of the Eastman/Rochester Studies in Ethnomusicology series of the University of Rochester Press.