Curriculum Vitae
Education
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1989-1993
Ph.D. African History, August, 1993
Concentration: West African History
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 1988-1989
M. A. European History, August, 1989
Concentration: English Labor History
University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana, 1988-1989
B. A., Second Class Upper Division, History and Religions, August, 1984
Employment
Full Professor of History, July 2000 to the Present, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Appointed Hugh K. Foster Associate Professor in African Studies, July 1998 - July 2000
Associate Professor of History, July 1997 - June 2000
Assistant Professor of History, August 1993 to June 1997
Fellowships
Recipient of Research Fellowships, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (Harvard University) and the Du Bois Institute, 2001- 2002
Recipient of Research Fellowship, William Milton Foundation, Harvard University Medical School, 1999 - 2000
Recipient of Research Fellowship, National Endowment, 1997:
Zora Neale Hurston Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities, Northwestern University, 1993-1994
Dissertation Fellow, Commonwealth Center for Cultural and Literary Change, University of Virginia, 1992-1993
Doctoral Research Fellow, African Development Foundation, 1991-1992
Professional Associations
Vice President, West African Research Association (WARA)
Member of African Studies Association, U.S. (ASA)
Member of American Historical Association.
Council Member, Historical Society of Ghana
Member of Ghana Studies Council
Member of Alcohol and Temperance History Group
Honors
Commonwealth Fellowship Award;1989 - 1991
Du Pont History Award, 1991
Corresponding Fellow, Royal Historical Society (United Kingdom)
Nominated as Fellow of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Interviews/Profiles
"The Importance of President Clinton's Trip to Africa", "The World," National Public Radio/BBC, March 20,1998
"An Assessment of President Clinton's Trip to Africa", "The World," National Public Radio/BBC, March 31,1998
"The Legacy of Slavery and Slave Trade in Ghana", Choice FM, Accra. Special Program funded by Harvard University. March 20, 2002. Host: Christopher Lyden
Papers
"Alcohol in the Political Economy of British Colonialism: The Case of the Gold Coast, 1919 - 1955". Paper presented at the History Department, University of Ghana, February 1992.
"Alcohol Use, Abuse, and Rehabilitation in Twentieth-Century Urban Ghana" Paper presented at Workshop on "Alcohol Use, Abuse, and Rehabilitation in Ghana", Accra, July 30-31,1992
"Powerful Fluids: Alcohol and Water in the Struggle for Social Power in Urban Gold Coast, 1860-1919". Paper presented at Northwestern University, January 1994
"What is in a Drink? Class, Popular Culture, and the Politics of Akpeteshie (Local Gin) in Ghana, 1930-1967." Paper presented at the African Studies Association Conference, Toronto, November 1994
With Obeng, Pashington. "Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History." Paper presented in the Walter Rodney Seminar Series, Boston University African Studies Center, February 1995. Published as Working Paper No. 198
"C. C. Reindorf on the Cultural Articulation of Power in Precolonial Ghana: A View from a Social Historian." Paper presented at the International Reindorf Conference, Basel, October 25-27, 1995
"Constructing and Contesting Sexuality: `Prostitution' in Colonial Gold Coast." Paper presented at the African Studies Association Conference, Orlando, November 1995
With Obeng, Pashington. "Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History II: The Twentieth Century". Paper presented in the Walter Rodney Seminar Series, Boston University African Studies Center, April 1996
"Wo pe tam won pe ba (you like cloth but you don't want children): Urbanization, Individualism, and Gender Relations in Colonial Ghana, c.1900-1939." Paper presented at the SOAS Conference on the African Urban Past, University of London, June 1996
"The Image of Africa in the Twenty-First Century: A Challenge for Responsible Intellectual Partnership." Keynote address presented at the German African Studies Association Conference, Berlin, October 3, 1996.
"Drinking with Friends: Popular Culture, Political Quiescence and the Working Poor in Independent Ghana." Paper presented at the African Studies Center Workshop on Alcohol in Africa -- Multiple Utilities and Meanings, Leiden, June 1997
"Knowledge, Belief and Moral Ecology: Explaining Sea Erosion in Twentieth Century Keta (Ghana)". Paper presented at the Africa Colloquium, Frankfurt University, June 19, 1997
"Unstable Ecology: Belief, Knowledge, and the Enigma of Sea Erosion in Colonial Keta (Ghana), 1907-1929." Paper presented at the University of California at Los Angeles, January 28, 1997
"Ghana: Reflections on 40 Years of Independence." Distinguished Africanist Address, Boston College, April 15, 1998
"Sports, Spectatorship, and Leisure in Twentieth-Century Africa." Paper presented at the African Studies Association Conference, Chicago, October 1998
"Sports, Spectatorship and Politics in the 1930s: Bukom and the Social History of Boxing in Colonial Ghana." Paper presented at SOAS, London, February 10, 1999
"An Eco-Social History of Southeast Ghana." Work in progress seminar, St. Antony's College, Oxford University, March 4, 1999
"History, Memory, Slave Trade and Slavery in Anlo, Ghana." 14th Annual O. Truman Driggs Distinguished Lecture. University of Minnesota at Morris, September 14, 1999
"Historicizing Belief in African History." Paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Conference, Chicago, January 2000
"Itinerant Gold Mines? Mobility, Sexuality and the Spread of STD's and HIV/AIDS in Twentieth-Century Ghana." Open Lecture, Medical Research Council, Fajara, The Gambia, August 4, 2000
Teaching African History. Workshop for High School Teachers as part of the Teachers as Scholars Program, Harvard University, October-November 2000
"African-Lebanese Relations in West Africa: A Historical Perspective." Paper presented at the CASAS Workshop as part of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, August 30, 2001
"The Lebanese in West Africaand the Politics of Integration: A Historical Perspective." Paper presented at the Center for Democracy and Development, Accra, November 1, 2001
"Dutch Schnapps and Ritual in Ghanaian History." Conference on Dutch-Ghanaian Relations: Past and Present. The Hague, November 5-7, 2001
"Folk Environmental Wisdom Versus Scientific Knowledge: Producing and Contesting Knowledge in Anlo, Southeastern Ghana." Paper presented at the West African Research Association Workshop on Doing Fieldwork in Africa, Dakar, June 12-15, 2002
"Comic Opera, Comic Relief! Concert Party, Popular Culture and Urbanism in Twentieth Century Ghana." Paper presented at Tufts University Workshop on Popular Arts and Performance from Ghana, Medford, November 14, 2002
"Chiefs and Socio-Political Change in the Gold Coast: Insights from Reports on Liquor Consumption, 1919 to 1934." Paper presented at the Conference on "Chieftaincy in Africa: Governance, Culture and Development," Accra, January 6-10, 2003
"Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History", with Obeng Pashington, Boston University, African Studies Center, Working Paper No. 198
Books
Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-Social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana
, 1850 to Recent Times. Oxford, James Currey; Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001
Drink, Power and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c.1800 to Recent Times, Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1996
Edited Books
Themes in West Africa's History, Ohio UniversityPress, 2005
The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself and Other Writings, with Boahen, Adu, A., Thomas C. McCaskie, Nancy Lawler, and Ivor Wilks, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003
Articles and Chapters
"The State and Alcohol Revenues: Promoting `Economic Development' in Gold Coast/Ghana, 1919 to the Present", Histoire Sociale/Social History 27:54, (pp. 393-411), 1994
"The State and Alcohol Revenues: Promoting `Economic Development' in Gold Coast/Ghana, 1919 to the Present," The Changing Face of Drink: Substance, Imagery, and Behaviour, Jack S. Blocker Jr. and Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, (Ed.), Ottawa, Social History Incorporated, 1997
"Alcoholism in Ghana: A Themes in West Africa's History, ed., Ohio University Press, 2005
Socio-Cultural Exploration," Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 19:2, (pp. 261-280), 1995
"Spirituality, Gender and Power in Asante History," International Journal of African Historical Studies, with Obeng, Pashington., 28:3, (pp. 481-508), 1995
"What's in a Drink: Class Struggle, Popular Culture, and the Politics of Akpeteshie (Local Gin) in Ghana, 1930-1967," Journal of African History 37:2, (pp. 215-236), 1996:
"Sexuality and Prostitution among the Akan of the Gold Coast, c.1650 to 1950," Past and Present, No. 156, (pp. 144-173),
"Akan Region, History", Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Africa, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997
"C. C. Reindorf on the Cultural Articulation of Power in Precolonial Ghana: A View from a Social Historian," The Recovery of the West African Past: African Pastors and African History in the Nineteenth Century, Paul Jenkins, (Ed.) Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1998
"The Image of Africa in the Twenty-First Century: A Challenge for Responsible Intellectual Partnership," Afrika und das Andere: Alteritat und Innovation, Heike Schmidt and Albert Wirz, (Ed.), Hamburg: LIT, 1998
"Christianity, Modernity, and the Weight of Tradition in the Life of Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, c.1888-1931," Africa 69:2, (pp. 279-311), 1999:
"Asante Medicine in the Seychelles," Ghana Studies Council Newsletter, No. 12, 5-6, 1999
"Alcohol in Africa, " in Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Anthony K. Appiah, (Eds) Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999
"Wo pe tam won pe ba (you like cloth but you don't want children): Urbanization, Individualism, and Gender Relations in Colonial Ghana, c.1900-1939," Africa's Urban Past, David Anderson and Richard Rathbone, (Ed.) Oxford: James Currey, 2000
"Africans in the Diaspora; the Diaspora and Africa, " commissioned Article for Centenary Issue of African Affairs, 99: 395, (pp.183-215), 2000
The Beautyful Ones are not yet Born," African Novels in the Classroom, Ayi Kwei Armah, Jean Hay, (Ed), Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1968
"Asante at the turn of the Twentieth-Century," introduction to special issue on the centenary of the Yaa Asantewaa War, Ghana Studies, 3, (pp. 3-12),. 2001, Guest Editor
"History, Memory, Slave Trade and Slavery in Anlo (Ghana)," Slavery and Abolition, 22:3, (pp. 1-24), 2001,
"Ahenfo Nsa (the 'Drink of Kings'): Dutch Schnapps and Ritual in Ghanaian History," Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 Years of Dutch-Ghanaian Relations, I. van Kessel, (Ed.) Amsterdam, KIT Publishers, 2002
Drinking with Friends: Popular Culture, the Working Poor, and Youth Drinking in Independent Ghana," Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure, and Politics, Deborah Fahy Bryceson and Nina Tellegen, (Ed.) Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2002
"Folk Environmental Wisdom Versus Scientific Knowledge: Producing and Contesting Knowledge in Anlo, Southeastern Ghana," Ghana in Africa and the World: Essays in Honor of Adu Boahe, Toyin Falola, (Ed.) Lawrenceville: Africa World Press, 2002
"Leisure in African History," introduction to special issue on "Leisure in Africa," International Journal of African Historical Studies, with Charles Ambler, 35: 1 1-16. Guest Editor, 2002
"Bukom and the Social History of Boxing in Accra: Warfare and Citizenship in Precolonial Ga Society," special issue on "Leisure in Africa," International Journal of African Historical Studies, 35:1, (pp. 39-60), 2002
"Alcohol and Drugs," Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza and Dickson Eyoh, (Eds.) London, Routledge, 2002
Book Reviews
"Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa," by Jonathan Crush and Charles Ambler, Social History of Alcohol Review, # 28-29 (Fall 1993/Spring 1994)
"The Quills of a Porcupine: AsanteNationalism in an Emergent Ghana," by Jean Marie Allman, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 27:3, 1993
"Murder and Politics in Colonial Ghana," by Richard Rathbone, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 28:1, 1995
"State and Society in Pre-Colonial Asante," by T. C. McCaskie, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 29:2, 1996
"Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe," by Sandra E. Greene, Journal of African History, 39: 3, 1998
"In Search of Africa," by Manthia Diawara, Boston Globe, 1999
"In the Realms of Gold: Pioneering in African History," by Roland Oliver, Journal of Asian and African Studies 34:3,1999
"Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture," by Dwight Heath, Ethnos, 66:3, 2001
"Slaves and Slave Holders on the Gold Coast: Towards and Understanding of Social Bondage in West Africa," by Peter Haenger, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 34:2, 2001
"Soldiers, Airmen, Spies and Whisperers: The Gold Coast in World War II", by Nancy Ellen Lawler, Journal of Military History, 67: 3, 2003
Forthcoming Books
Itinerant Gold Mines? Mobility, Sexuality and the Spread of Gonorrhea and Syphilis in Twentieth-Century Ghana with Samuel Agyei-Mensah
Sex, Work and Survival: Gendered Struggles and Coping Strategies in Ghana at the Close of the Twentieth Century, Christine Oppong and Yaa Oppong, (Eds.)