Interested in learning about the role of art in West African culture but unable to pay a visit to the African continent just now?

You won't have to go any farther than campus as we host a series of four lectures beginning next week by Fongot Kinni, founder and director of the African Arts/Handicraft and Environmental Management Institute’s anthropology and art museum in Cameroon. Kinni is also an anthropology instructor and lecturer at the University of Buea in Cameroon.

A Center Stage event, the lecture series will be presented in Clement 212. Here's the line-up:

"Art and Cultural Development in Africa-Cameroon," 3 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 16. "Art is accepted in Africa as the mirror of metaphysical and divine fascinations," says Kinni, "which societies and gifted individuals reproduce and use to reveal, reflect and enhance their individual and collective memory and image, as well as their environment."

"Passport Masks, Long-distance Trade and Cultural Exchanges in Africa," 11 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 18. Traditional African "passport" masks were created of terra cotta or wood and originally used to facilitate long-distance trade. Now, the masks are used by individual storeowners as talismans to promote good sales and attract customers or simply purchased by tourists as souvenirs.

"Peace Building Through Art and Cultural Exchanges in the Third Millennium," 7 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 23. "Art has always served in Africa as a medium for enhancing the magic and the fascinating energy in every culture and people," says Kinni. "Hence, art celebration was used as a medium for creating and enhancing diplomatic relations and exchanges between cultures and peoples."

"West Africa: The Child That Refuses to Walk – 50 Years of Folkloric Democracies and Authoritarianism," 11 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 25. Kinni concludes the series with a presentation about the largely unsuccessful pattern of many African leaders choosing Western or Marxist models for economic, social, technical, political and cultural development while ignoring valid models inspired by the African culture itself.