Logos Open Culture’s next publication – Making Music in Malawi by John Lwanda PhD
Logos Open Culture has received a fantastic manuscript from renowned Malawian social historian John Lwanda all about Malawian music. We can’t wait to publish it next year.
In his new book Making Music in Malawi, Lwanda sets out to understand the social factors that define Malawi’s music, and the role it plays in society. The book traces how popular and traditional music has been shaped, with attention to particular movements, moments and musicians in Malawi’s history to the present day. It considers how music has been used for nationalist and developmental purposes, in ritual and ceremony, and in prayer, protest and politics. The book comprises 22 chapters including an extensive, selected discography.
This groundbreaking work has been motivated by and at the same time challenged in the orality of the Malawi public sphere. Cultural heritage is still largely carried in memory and passed on orally. Music is essentially part of oral literature. This book commits some of the orality and memory to paper in its writing. As such, and in line with the vision of Logos Open Culture, this book aims to inform deeper knowledge of Malawi, and in the process make it more accessible and record it for posterity.
John Lwanda, MB ChB, DCH, MRCP, FRCP (Edin & Glasg), PhD (Social Science & History), is a physician, social researcher, political historian and writer. An intellectual giant, he has published extensively, especially on Malawi’s historical and social front. His Kamuzu Banda of Malawi: A study in promise, power, and paralysis (Malawi under Dr Banda) (1961 to 1993) is considered by many to be a seminal work. Lwanda’s research interests include collecting, archiving and recording popular and traditional music, still photography and collecting Malawian artistic and craft objects, including fabrics.
Learn more about John Lwanda’s work at Pamtondo.
Also check out Logos Open Culture Director Muti Etter-Phoya’s co-authored piece with John Lwanda published in 2019. “Malawi at 50: culture, sport and music“, Society of Malawi Journal, 72(1), pp. 35-58.
