Professor J. Collins
Using a variety of paradigms, this course explores a broad range of popular musical forms in sub-Saharan Africa as stylistic areas. Southern, Central, East and West Africa (Francophone and Anglophone) musical styles are considered. The historical scope of the inquiry extends from 19th century to the present. The investigation seeks to highlight the relationships among popular music, traditional performance, and the social and cultural forces of modernization.

Professor K. Awoonor
This course will explore the background for one of the most phenomenal world movements with its origin in the African exile condition of the new world and Europe. What DuBois dubbed the “triangle of suffering” spawned the liberation ideology of Pan-Africanism inaugurated by a small blackelite in the USA and the West Indies, with inputs by the tiny African group of intellectuals who were marooned in Europe after the Second World War.
The course will concentrate on the lives and intellectual outputs of W.E.B. DuBois, George Padmore, and Kwame Nkrumah. In Nkrumah’s case, his practical engagement as the leader of Ghana and the major force in the African liberation movement will also be explored.
The course looks beyond this triumvirate in the rise of global black intellectual consciousness and its tussle with international communism and the western imperial systems. The course considers these three leaders’ impact on current African political discourse within the expanding interests of the Pan-African ideology which continues to influence Africa and the black world’s legitimate place in the global system.

Professor Boafo-Arthur
The objective of this course is to examine the nature of African politics especially after decolonization. The politics of post-independent Africa has been dominated by issues of persistent underdevelopment, instability, conflicts, and lately democratic re-construction. These form the basis for discussion in this course which combines engagement with the peculiar developmental problems of Africa with the role of Africa in the global system.. How Africa has tried over the years to overcome various developmental problems in the context of its relations with the international system shall therefore be examined. In view of the transformation of the global system and the current stress on globalization, especially after the collapse of communism, the main focus is on pertinent issues impacting on Africa as the leaders conduct various forms of interactions in the global system. The following key questions, among several others, engage our attention. What kinds of relationships exist between Africa and the global systemic order? What accounts for Africa’s seemingly unending peripherization? What has been the role of the West in Africa’s post-independence existence? What have been African responses to her developmental crises?

Professor G.K. Nukunya
Cross-listed with V18.9776.001

The course introduces students to aspects of Ghanaian society and culture. It considers both traditional aspects of life and how people live their lives in this first decade of the new millennium. How Ghanaians perceive and conceive themselves and their society; how others view the society and life of Ghanaians also receive critical attention. The course emphasizes that Ghanaians are not an undifferentiated lot and that what the different people say their behavior should be differs from what their actual behavior is. Students will get to examine these varied perceptions and perspectives as well as construct their own representations of the society. The course will also attempt to answer questions about Ghana and Ghanaians that are of interest to the non-Ghanaian getting acquainted with the country. The course combines talks, readings, discussions, visits, and students' presentations in class. There will be a written examination at the end of the semester and a dissertation on an aspect of Ghanaian society and culture that students might choose to explore.

Professor J. Nkrumah
Investigating the longstanding connections between art, ritual, and everyday life, students will combine an intensive study of the history of African art and culture with hands-on workshops with present day local craftsmen, and street artists. Apprenticeship-style workshops with Ghana's vibrant community of sign painters, coffin makers, and fabric designers will provide students with opportunities to experience this connection between art and life first-hand, and to create their own responses to traditional African art.

Professor E. Sutherland

This course shall focus on the place of women in the literary tradition, an issue that is very current in the discourse on the literature of Africa and its Diaspora. Women writers have emerged at the forefront of the movement to restore African women to their proper place in the study of African history, society and culture. In this process, the need to recognize the women as literary artists in the oral mode has also been highlighted. Furthermore, the work of women writers is gaining increasing significance and deserves to be examined within the context of canon formation. Authors and texts will be examined, focusing on such topics as the heritage of women's literature, images of women in the works of male writers; women in traditional and contemporary society; women and the African family in the literary tradition; literature as a tool for self-definition and self-liberation; African women writers; female expressions of cultural nationalism in the Caribbean; female novelists of the African continent; Black women dramatists; the poetry of African women.

Professor K. Anyidoho
Cross-listed with V18.9779.001
Note: this course is open to all students for elective credit. Comparative literature majors in track ii (literary and cultural studies) may count this course toward one of their non-core major requirements.

The course examines certain recurring themes and critical issues in post-colonial narratives in Africa. It begins with a look at the debate and polemics around post-colonialism as a critical and theoretical concept. It then dwells on specific narratives, mainly novels by African writers, works located in the period following classical colonialism. The reading of these narratives is informed by such critical issues as the crisis of cultures in contact; personal, class, ethnic and national identities; the politics of gender; debates over language; the aesthetics and politics of art; strategic transformations in narrative form, etc.

Coming Soon!

Professors K. Awonoor and K. Anyidoho
This is a workshop type course intended for a small group of students, each with a strong aptitude and/or demonstrated talent for creative writing. Our basic objective is to guide students into a more systematic approach to creative writing in any of the main genres, especially fiction and poetry. Each student is expected to engage in critical discussions on samples of their own writing as well as on writing by other members of the class. Our focus shall be on developing a grasp of the rudiments and general mechanics of the writer's craft, while at the same time allowing for a fuller realization of the personal/individual creative impulse and talent. Some class sessions will be devoted to various types of writing exercises, others to the discussion of sample texts, most of it produced by members of the class. Each student will be expected to share his/her work with the class and possibly with a wider audience when possible. At the end of the semester, each student will be expected to have produced a substantial body of creative writing for assessment by the course instructors.

Professor A. Perbi
The course examines the rise, growth, effects, and the abolition of the Atlantic Slave trade as well as its legacy. The course begins with a discussion of the nature of West African society before the introduction of the Atlantic Slave Trade; and the relations among Asante peoples, other neighboring West African peoples, the indigenous slave trade, and relations with Europeans in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Atlantic Slave trade itself is analyzed from historical, ethnographic, sociological, economic and political perspectives, focusing on Africa, Europe and the Americas. The immediate and long term effects of the Slave Trade on Africa are considered, as well as the history of the trade's Abolition, and the legacy of the Atlantic Slave trade in African, European and American societies.

Professor A. Gadzekpo
The aim of the course is to have NYU journalism students team up with students of University of Ghana to report on Ghana. Reporting teams will be constituted and reviewed throughout the semester, depending on the number and experience of students who sign up for the Course. Three thematic areas – Politics, Health/Environment and Social Issues – will form the focus of coverage.
Reporting Assignments by student teams constitute the essence of the course. Ideally, stories should reflect perspectives from both genders, as well as the socio-economic context of Ghana. Experts will be invited to give background lectures on the three thematic areas. The course will also involve class discussions and critiques on how to cover the selected areas of reportage.

Professor E. Dovlo
Religion continues to inform just about every issue of public life, especially in developing countries while making a comeback in highly secularized Western Societies. There is therefore a growing need for scholarly research into issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs as an empirical reality often obscured by the theoretical notions of secular state. The course aims to examine past and contemporary issues in religion and public life; religion as an indicator of political and public behavior; the role religion plays in shaping policies on economic, education, health, scientific research, foreign policy, etc. Religious advocacy and its effectiveness in guiding public policy makers is also covered. These issues will be discussed in the context of Ghana, Africa and in the whole world.

Professor M. Williams
Coming Soon!

Professor A. Darkwah
Globalization has become a buzzword in our time. Four different sets of literature have been developed around this concept. The first set of literature seeks to define the concept in terms of its relationship to the changing workforce, technology and communications, culture and finance. A second set of literature debates the novelty of the various processes encoded in the concept of globalization. Another set of literature debates the changing role and nature of the state in an era of globalization. The final set of literature debates the issue of whether the economic prospects of the developing world indeed hinge on their full participation in the globalization process. This course will expose students to these four sets of literature and provide the students with an opportunity to interrogate the very concept of globalization and to debate its benefits and disadvantages for the developing world in general and Africa in particular.

• Contemporary African Dance and Movement Techniques
• Traditional Design and Architecture in Africa
• Traditional Music

• Africa in the International Setting
• The History of African Chieftaincy

• Conflict in African States
• Traditional Medicine

Courses offered through the English and modern languages departments and the School of Performing Arts

Courses offered through the history department

Courses offered through the linguistics department and the School of Communications Studies

Courses offered through the departments of archaeology, economics, geography and resource development, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, social work, and statistics