CANCELLED: CAS Lecture Series: Re-evaluating the African Archive in Cold War & African Historiography

Event time: 
Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall (LUCE ), 203 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

Under the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana gained independence from Britain on March 6, 1957. Yet, what did it mean to be a Ghanaian? Through re-examining the formation of Ghanaian national identity during the Cold War, Osei-Opare offers two arguments. First, that Ghanaian national identity was forged through the violent racism its nationals experienced in the Soviet Union, the United States, and Ghana. Second, he argues against what he calls, ‘postcolonial African archival pessimism,’ the idea that postcolonial African archives are too disorganized, ill-kept, or destroyed, to be of much, if any, value in configuring postcolonial African histories. In the talk, he will argue that one must fundamentally engage with local, regional, and national African archives and non-African archives to understand the relationship between Africans and African nations and the Cold War powers. Through a multi-sited and multi-lingual approach that situates Africa and Africans as serious sites of investigation, the talk will highlight the value and dynamic histories and connections scholars can make to postcolonial studies, African history, and Cold War studies.

Nana Osei-Opare