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Musician, music producer, entrepreneur, and former Black Panther Nile Rodgers will deliver Lafayette’s annual Landis Lecture and participate in a panel discussion on American culture’s influence in the world during a campus visit March 29-30.
In an event sponsored by Americans for an Informed Democracy, Rodgers will join a multidisciplinary panel of scholars discussing “American Culture: Benevolent Force or Evil Empire?” 6 p.m. Monday in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104.
Joining him will be Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology at Lafayette, director of the College’s Technology Clinic program, and author of long-term studies on communities in Ethiopia and rural Mexico; Katalin Fabian, assistant professor of government and law at Lafayette and recipient of research grants from the Ford Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and the Institute for International Peace Studies; and Amardeep Singh, associate professor of English at Lehigh University and editor of a special issue on world religions and media culture for Polygraph Journal.
Pizza and refreshments will be served at the free event.
As the College’s John and Muriel Landis Lecturer, Rodgers will speak on “Intellectual Property in the Digital Age” 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Oechsle Hall auditorium. An outspoken commentator on Internet distribution of digital music, movies, and video games, Rogers promotes an alternative business model for on-line digital music.
Free and open to the public, the talk is sponsored by Lafayette’s Minority Scientists and Engineers and the Leonardo Society, a group for Lafayette students pursuing a bachelor of arts in engineering.
As member of the disco group Chic, Rodgers recorded the hits “Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah),” “Le Freak,” and “Good Times.” Toward the end of the group’s tenure, he began producing and writing for other artists, including hits for Sister Sledge (“We Are Family”) and Diana Ross (“I’m Coming Out”). He went on to produce many successful albums, such as David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, Duran Duran’s Arena, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, Mick Jagger’s She’s the Boss, Jeff Beck’s Flash, The B-52’s’ Roam, and the Vaughan Brothers’ Family Style. Ranked as the world’s top music producer by Billboard magazine, he also is considered the most sampled music artist of all time, with the Sugarhill Gang, Will Smith, Notorious B.I.G., and many others using portions of his music.
In recent years, Rodgers founder the We Are Family Foundation and produced Duran Duran’s comeback album. He also owns a national music distribution company, Sumthing Distribution, which specializes in video game soundtracks.
Established by Trustee Emeritus John Landis ’39, the Landis Lectureship focuses on issues of technology and international cooperation. Previous Landis lecturers include author Isaac Asimov; New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the National Book Award; television journalist and former Texas state district judge Catherine Crier; B. Gentry Lee, space-systems engineer and science fiction novelist; Alden Meyer, director of government relations for the Union of Concerned Scientists; and, last year, Peter H. Gleick, co-founder and president of Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security.