African Studies

In this course, students examine the development of an African diaspora in Europe and the coincident development of European ideas about blackness and whiteness. They explore the transnational connections binding black communities in Europe, while also paying due attention to the local specificities that created varied experiences and identities across the continent. Students survey the contexts that brought Africans and their descendants to Europe, and they consider the diverse ways in which peoples of African descent have shaped and been shaped by societies that variously tolerated them, rejected them, or accepted them on specific terms. Within the broad and overlapping contexts of slavery and emancipation, imperialism, Americanization, globalization, and multiculturalism, students explore politics and protest, nationalism and internationalism, art and literature, jazz, and hip-hop. They also focus on race, gender, power, subjectivity, and community-building in various state contexts.

This course introduces students to the evolution of creative writing by Ghanaian authors in the context of the emergence of the modern nation state in Africa. It discusses such issues as nationalism, national politics, and national language. Students gain familiarity with representative texts and authors. Topics include the rise of a national literature, characteristic features of Akan oral literature and Ewe oral literature, the national theater movement, and Ghanaian fiction and poetry. Texts: Kofi Awoonor, GUARDIANS OF THE SACRED WORD; Efua Sutherland, THE MARRIAGE OF ANASEWA; Ayi Kwei Armah, TWO THOUSAND SEASONS; Ama Ata Aidoo, THE GIRL WHO CAN AND OTHER STORIES; Amma Darko, HOUSEMAID; and selected poems from Ama Ata Aidoo, Kofi Awoonor, Kwesi Brew, Atukwei Okai, Kofi Anyidoho, Abena Busia, and Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang. NEW This is an upper level course intended to introduce students to the evolution of creative writing by Ghanaian authors in the specific context of the emergence of the modern nation state in Africa. Issues such as nationalism and literature, national culture and the literary imagination, concepts of national literature, the search for new forms of artistic expression and the Pan African tradition in Ghanaian literature will inform readings and discussions.

The Institute of African Studies hosts 20 of the University of Ghana's required courses (UGRC). Each of the 20 courses is preceded by an introductory course in African Studies. The introductory course aims to educate students to appreciate the contemporary value of African Studies as an area of inquiry, engage with discourses on African realities, appreciate African identities, identify the negative stereotypes about Africa and be equipped to challenge them, understand appropriate methodologies and frameworks for examining Africa and its past through multi-disciplinary approaches, obtain enhanced knowledge in specific areas of African Humanities and Social Sciences. The course continues with a section on Gender studies in Africa where students study concepts such as Patriarchy, masculinity, gender roles, hegemony, etc.. Finally, a comprehensive, conversational section on the language Dagbani is taught.

This course introduces the literature of Africa by way of its Nobel Prize-winning authors and their work, and examines the major issues surrounding it. It begins by questioning the very meaning of the term “African literature,” before examining some of its most salient features and issues such as its complex relationship with colonialism that made languages of Europe become the literary languages of Africa; the various forms of narration in Africa; colonialism and resistance; the tension between traditionalism and the African novel; as well as the complex relationship between African continental and diasporic literature. It also looks at major contemporary African literary Movements and their historical significance.