Year of Ghana Lecture Series (2012-2013)

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 a leader, the chief is given an apogee of a funeral ceremony. Such a commemorative event revolves around music. Since the chief is the custodian of the arts and repository of its classical dimensions, music becomes the most powerful vehicle for honoring, mourning, praising and cherishing his name during his death. It is my aim, in this presentation, to examine the organization of music and its significance in the context of Akan royal funerals.

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 presentation examines the formations, mission, ministries and impact of Ghanaian Christianity in North America. It explores especially the problems and prospects facing these congregations as they attempt to put down roots in their “host” countries.

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 that China has been involved with in Ghana. By looking at how this is being undertaken, it will allow us to evaluate issues relating to project financing, quality of workmanship, respect for human rights, concern with the environmental and cultural impact of the project, and the long-term benefits to China, which have all become major issues in determining whether China’s present-day role in Africa represents a new form of imperialism.

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 political.

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 political.

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 articulate cultural values and practices; historical resistance to the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism; and concerns about modernity. The presentation also brings attention to why, 48 years after its first publication, “The Dilemma of a Ghost” is still significant in ongoing discourse about African diaspora identities and experiences.

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, particularly those who currently use or at one time have used skin lightening agents. More specifically, the study relies primarily upon qualitative data to investigate the relationship between gender, skin bleaching, light skin, and beauty. Although the participants interviewed indeed claim that their use of skin lightening agents is fueled by a desire to be perceived as more noticeably beautiful, critical analysis of the data reveals that what they are seeking is not an arbitrary beauty, but one that is functional and materializes via light skin. In this way, beauty via light skin, as gained through skin bleaching, allows participants access to social capital, and for many, their newly bleached light skin color becomes a bartering tool negotiable for economic capital.

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 a complicated reality.

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 value, as well as Igor Kopytoff's notion of the cultural biography of things, this lecture traces the eventful biography of Asante kente cloth through two centuries and two continents, noting the changes in valuation and identity as kente is redefine through shifts in contexts and use.

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 particular, and the oral tradition in general, play significant roles in traditional Ghanaian communities. It asserts that these oral forms are created by the community to record, express and preserve their history, customs, worldview, spirituality, values, art and aesthetics. Their contents provide fresh materials for creative writing and scholarship in archaeology, modern history, literature, philosophy, and religion. They also reflect the hopes, fears, and aspirations of the people; and help in identity formation, socialization, group cohesion and cultural continuity. Despite the winds of globalization and technology blowing across Ghana today, these oral forms remain dynamic, resilient and resourceful.

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; revealing Ghanaians’ quest for truth and meaning in life; showing the polarity in human behavior; pointing to the society’s hopes, dreams and aspirations; and showing the Ghanaian perception of cosmic elements. Names may reflect the geographical environment (hydronyms, toponyms, vegetation, agricultural activity, wildlife, as well as the physical and geomorphologic phenomena) of the one’s birthplace. The circumstances surrounding one’s birth such as the day of the week, time of day, the order of birth, political or religious significance of the birth date, the season of the year, and even the attitude of the parents at the time of birth may be caught up Ghanaian onomasiology. The specific circumstances relating to a family as well as the gender of a child all play significant roles in the naming process. Some names are based on human behavior, occupation, and the name recipient’s physical characteristics. Others are derived from epic sources and may be theophoric because they reveal attributes and epithets of gods and goddesses. Names in Ghanaian society are perceived as important indicators of expectations and of the bearers’ behavior and may act as pointers to the name-bearers’ past, present, and future accomplishments. They reveal entire ethnic group’s experiences, and construct the name-bearer since they have the power to create an attitude in those who hear it even before they meet the name-bearer. Finally, there is a great deal of intertextualization and indirectness in Ghanaian onomasiology. The names’ inter-text, abstractness and indirectness respond to face-threatening acts, immunize the name-givers against any form of attacks (verbal or physical), and help avoid direct confrontation. Indirect and abstract names tend to be proverbial and are conventionalized because the public is aware of their pragmatic import. Given the acceptance of oblique communication in Ghanaian society, expressing one’s feeling via obscurity is not considered artificial or insincere. In sum, Ghanaian names are context-sensitive, anchored in a socio-cultural discourse, and are impossible to interpret without reference to, and an understanding of, the overall context of the situation. Samuel Obeng, is Professor of Linguistics and the Director of Indiana University’s African Studies Program. He obtained his PhD in Language and Linguistic Science (phonetics and pragmatics) at the University of York in England (United Kingdom). His research interests are in pragmatics and institutional discourse analysis, socio-phonetics and phonology, and the documentation of African languages, especially those that are endangered. He has published 25 books and edited volumes and over one hundred (100) papers in refereed journals.

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 conducted a sonar survey off of Elmina, Ghana, which resulted in the discovery of a mid-seventeenth century shipwreck, likely the Dutch West India Company ship Groeningen, which sank in 1647 when a cannon exploded while the ship was at anchor. After four seasons of excavation and study conducted by Cook and colleagues at Syracuse University, an assemblage of artifacts involved in the West African trade including glass beads, brass manillas, and a variety of brass and pewter basins, has been recovered. These tangible remains of trade commodities, rarely preserved on land excavations, serve as mute testimony to the complexities of the West African trade. These remains also speak to the agency of coastal African merchants who drove the demand in trade for such commodities. Greg will situate his discussion within this exchange between European ships and African merchants, examining how the commodity trade mediated this contact of cultures for over four centuries.

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 the theory of silence. It begins by an examination of the common aspects of the physical structure of the slave castles. It continues by focusing on two sites, out of many: Ganvie in present day Republic of Benin and Nzulezo, in Ghana. Both have been chosen because they are unique settlements on water, offering ways in which the natural environment was employed in the aid of self-preservation and later to serve as a means of remembrance. The settlements came about because humans decided to do what all humans will do: defend themselves against attack. Opoku-Agyemang, who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from York University in Toronto, Canada, has chaired or served on 20 national boards in Ghana. She also served on the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The author of nine books and numerous articles and papers, her research interests include literature by African women, Ghana’s oral literature, and issues related to the trade in enslaved Africans. In 2006, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly during events marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. During her visit to Kennesaw State, Vice Chancellor Opoku-Agymeng was accompanied by Isaac R. Amuah, director of the UCC’s Center for International Education; Isaac Ohene, university registrar, and assistant registrar, Alberta Yaa Graham; Juliana Boateng, distance education and Elaine Kwani. The delegation visited a class on the history of Ghana; met with representatives of the Center for Student Leadership, the Center for Conflict Management, the Ph.D. program in International Conflict Management and the Bagwell College student teaching abroad program. They also participated in workshops on teaching in Africa and attended sessions with Kennesaw State’s Ghanaian students and students who have studied abroad in Ghana.

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 the theory of silence. It begins by an examination of the common aspects of the physical structure of the slave castles. It continues by focusing on two sites, out of many: Ganvie in present day Republic of Benin and Nzulezo, in Ghana. Both have been chosen because they are unique settlements on water, offering ways in which the natural environment was employed in the aid of self-preservation and later to serve as a means of remembrance. The settlements came about because humans decided to do what all humans will do: defend themselves against attack. Opoku-Agyemang, who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from York University in Toronto, Canada, has chaired or served on 20 national boards in Ghana. She also served on the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The author of nine book and numerous articles and papers, her research interests include literature by African women, Ghana’s oral literature, and issues related to the trade in enslaved Africans. In 2006, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly during events marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. During her visit to Kennesaw State, Vice Chancellor Opoku-Agymeng was accompanied by Isaac R. Amuah, director of the UCC’s Center for International Education; Isaac Ohene, university registrar, and assistant registrar, Alberta Yaa Graham; Juliana Boateng, distance education and Elaine Kwani. The delegation visited a class on the history of Ghana; met with representatives of the Center for Student Leadership, the Center for Conflict Management, the Ph.D. program in International Conflict Management and the Bagwell College student teaching abroad program. They also participated in workshops on teaching in Africa and attended sessions with Kennesaw State’s Ghanaian students and students who have studied abroad in Ghana.

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 environmental destruction, poverty, and insufficient infrastructure and services. This talk establishes the unique physical and cultural geography setting for KSU’s Year of Ghana, highlighting some of Ghana’s outstanding qualities and current challenges. Originally, from Trinidad, Dr. Slinger-Friedman obtained her M.A. in Latin American Studies and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Florida. Her work has included a World Bank sponsored study in Mexico and El Salvador of Vetiver grass technology for soil erosion control, the use of an agroforestry system for Amazonian urban resettlement in Acre, Brazil, and the use of ecotourism in both Latin America and Africa (specifically Ghana) for economic development and nature preservation. Currently, Dr. Slinger-Friedman has a regional focus on Latin America and the Caribbean and the SE United States, where she researches ecotourism and the impact of Latino immigration respectively. Her recent research interests also include innovative pedagogy in geography.