Funerals among the Akan of Ghana are distinct from all other social events. They are not only the most elaborate of the ceremonial occasions of the Akan in terms of attendance, time taken, or emotion generated but also crucial means of reaffirming and negotiating social relations, political structures, and identities. The death of a traditional ruler in the Akan society is regarded as an occasion of the gravest crisis. As a means of concretely expressing the gravest emotions for the loss of...

Tom Pynn, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Coordinator of the Peace Studies Program, discusses "From Tradition to Modernity: An Introduction to the Thought of Kwame Gyeke and Kwame Anthony Appiah".

Highlife music has, and continues to model its lyrical structure along the lines of Ghanaian indigenous music. As in Ghanaian indigenous music, highlife lyrics serve as commentary on life; expressing the world-view, social sanctions, sentiments, and archive of the social memory of the people.

A crucial development in global Christianity is the growing presence of congregations and ministries with roots in Africa in the western world. Since the 1970s, Ghanaian immigrants, as part of this trend, have brought to the West their own brands of Christianity (which they practice and also seek to propagate), and have formed numerous congregations in cities and towns in Europe and North America. Focusing on Ghanaian Presbyterian congregations in the United States and Canada, this...

Roger Gocking, the Emeritus Professor of History at Mercy College, discusses the Ghana and Chinese connection. He uses the Ghanaian experience to look at the contrasting and contested explanations for China’s increasingly extensive contact with the African continent. This talk focuses primarily on the construction of the Bui Hydroelectric Dam, which the Chinese state-owned company, Sinohydro, is currently building on the Black Volta River. The Bui project is by far the largest of the many...

Lyle Ashton Harris explores identity, desire and masculinity in modern-day Ghana in the exhibition “Accra My Love,” at the Zuckerman Museum of Kennesaw State University. Produced in conjunction with the school’s “Year of Ghana” program, the show comprises photographs, collage and video from the artist’s seven years of partial residence in that West African country, exploring the confluence of traditional Ghanaian life and contemporary Western culture through a lens that is both personal and...

Lyle Ashton Harris explores identity, desire and masculinity in modern-day Ghana in the exhibition “Accra My Love,” at the Zuckerman Museum of Kennesaw State University. Produced in conjunction with the school’s “Year of Ghana” program, the show comprises photographs, collage and video from the artist’s seven years of partial residence in that West African country, exploring the confluence of traditional Ghanaian life and contemporary Western culture through a lens that is both personal and...

In this presentation, Dr. Laurian Bowles focuses on the politics of fieldwork at Makola Market, the largest shopping area for Accra, Ghana. Drawing on collaborative research with head porters, Dr. Bowles discusses photography as a research method in public spaces, the hierarchies of women’s labor in Ghana, as well as the role anthropologists play in revealing nuances about life that are often hidden from view.

Ama Ata Aidoo is one of Ghana’s most revered writers. Her works includes drama, novels, short stories, poetry, and children’s stories. Aidoo’s play “The Dilemma of a Ghost” made her the first published Ghanaian writer in 1965, and maybe one of the first African writers to use fiction to depict the emerging challenges of modernity and identity in the African diaspora. This presentation examines how Aidoo uses the Ghanaian oral tradition in the form of proverbs and children’s games to...

Globally, the practice of skin bleaching has reached pandemic proportions, and in Ghana, the focus of the current research, upwards of 30 percent of the female population currently actively bleaches. Medical professionals and public commentators all agree that the desire to be seen as beautiful motivates the practice. Advancing the popular Ghanaian aphorism “ahoofe kasa,” which means literally “beauty talks,” this presentation will explore the politics of beauty among women in Ghana,...

This presentation explores the historic moment when Ghana gained its independence on March 6, 1957, and its consequences for the Pan-African movement. That three men—Kwame Nkrumah, the first prime minister and president of Ghana; the Trinidad-born activist and Pan-Africanist George Padmore; and the American scholar W. E. B. DuBois—came to symbolize the concretization of the movement’s objectives in an independent African country meant that what had long been a dream was now a reality, albeit...

The origins of Asante kente cloth lie deep in the history of the Asante Confederacy where it emerged in the 1800s as a cloth of prestige, made with great technical skill, saturated with historical and proverbial symbolism, and limited in circulation. Fast forward to the 21st century and simulated Asante kente-like patterns appear in the global market on objects as seemingly mundane as place mats and band aid strips. Drawing on Arjun Appadurai's theory of commodities and the politics of...

This presentation focuses on how the search for solutions to complicated equations in theoretical physics led to the definition of new graphical images, named after traditional African Adinkras, to conceptualize the equations in a new way.

Ghanaian oral tradition consists of the following genres: oratory, proverbs, riddles, drum language, historical fragments, myths, legends, drama, libation and songs. This paper discusses the roles played by the last two named forms, libation and praise songs in Ghanaian society. The generic features of these forms are explicated in addition to a systematic analysis of their performance techniques, contexts, themes and functions. The paper concludes that libation and praise song, in...

The object of this lecture is to demonstrate that Ghanaian anthroponymy and cloth names are important channels for ‘speaking’ for and about Ghanaian society. With respect to anthroponyms, I, Samuel Obeng, argue that unlike in Western societies where children usually take their father’s last name, in African societies, children have their own names. Names are used to achieve a number of communicative and socio-political goals and events such as: showing human relationships and social roles;...

Student Panel of Ghanaian students and returned study abroad in Ghana students reflect on their experiences in Ghana.

As one of the most important entrepôts in the region, Elmina was a key trading port from its construction in 1482 by the Portuguese, its takeover by the Dutch in 1637, and its ceding to the British in 1872. Coastal trading forts such as Sao Jorge da Mina served as hubs of early contact between Africans and Europeans, and as such provide a fascinating opportunity to study the material remains resulting from these interactions. With funding from the National Geographic Society, Greg Cook...

This presentation interrogates the idea of complete silence on the part of Africans as articulated in the literature on enslavement. The purpose is to share some of the ways in which Africans on the continent responded to the unending subject of the trade in enslaved Africans. The basic premise is that silence is both unnatural and impossible as a response to such a prolonged and devastating phenomenon. In support of this hypothesis, the discussion shares many types of evidence that refute...

This presentation interrogates the idea of complete silence on the part of Africans as articulated in the literature on enslavement. The purpose is to share some of the ways in which Africans on the continent responded to the unending subject of the trade in enslaved Africans. The basic premise is that silence is both unnatural and impossible as a response to such a prolonged and devastating phenomenon. In support of this hypothesis, the discussion shares many types of evidence that refute...

From its 334 miles of coastline, to its interior forests, famous man-made lake, and northern savannah, Ghana is home to a number of diverse cultures, wildlife, landscapes, and natural resources. A shining example to other countries in the region due to its relative prosperity and stability, Ghana is moving towards modernity while currently maintaining much of its unique culture and traditions. However, Ghana struggles with many of the problems afflicting developing countries: including...