Greene, Oliver | Center for Black Music Research
Name: Greene, Oliver
Historical Note: Oliver N. Greene, Jr., a native of LaGrange, GA, is an associate professor of music at Georgia State University where he teaches courses on traditional world music, the popular music of select countries and carnival traditions of the Americas, and has produced numerous world music shows and published articles in the Black Music Research Journal (2002, 1999), Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of Music (2005), and the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (1998) and Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (2008), as well as in the book The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders (2005). As a recipient of a Rockefeller fellowship at the CBMR in Chicago in 2000, he conducted fieldwork and research on the relationships between art, dance and music in the expression of ethnic identity in the wanaragua (Jankunú) ritual of the Garifuna of Belize. He has also conducted research on popular music and ancestor veneration rituals of the Garifuna in Belize and Honduras. In 2007 he produced the documentary film, “Play, Jankunú Play: The Garifuna Wanaragua Ritual in Belize.”