Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry
EDUCATION
Ph.D. 1999, (African History and Comparative Slavery), York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Post-Graduate Diploma 1999 (Contemporary African Heritage), York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
M.A. 1990 (History - British Empire and African History), Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
M.A. 1985-88 (African Studies – Completed Course Work), Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
B.A. 1982 Social Sciences (Sociology with minors in History & English), Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
COURSES TAUGHT
Foundations of Old and New World Civilizations (Undergraduate)
Archaeology of Sub-Saharan Africa: 300 BC-AD 500 (Graduate)
Topics in Archaeology of Sub-Saharan Africa (Graduate)
Early Humans in Africa (Undergraduate)
Popular Culture in Ghana (Undergraduate)
Special Topics in Cultural and Heritage Studies (Graduate)
Africa before 1880 (Undergraduate)
Africa and the Two World Wars (Undergraduate)
Southern African Societies (Undergraduate)
Ancient African Civilizations (Undergrad)
Slavery, Abolition and Colonial Rule in Africa (Undergraduate)
Comparative World Civilizations (Honors Program)
World History: Ancient Times to 1500 (Undergraduate)
World History: 1500 to the Present (Undergraduate
Seminar in African History (Graduate)
Africa South of the Sahara (Graduate)
Globalization & Social Change in Africa (Graduate)
European Imperialism in Africa (Under/Grad
Comparative Slavery & Abolition (Graduate)
Knowledge Production in Africa (Under/graduate)
Special Paper (Europeans in Castle/Forts and African Responses (Undergraduate)
African Historiography (Graduate)
West Africa under Colonial Rule (Undergraduate)
Age of European Diplomacy & Imperialism (Undergraduate)
Theory and Practice of History (Graduate)
Philosophy of History & Methodology (Graduate)
Intellectual History of Ghana (Graduate)
Eastern, Central & Southern Africa Societies (Undergraduate)
Africa and the Wider World (Undergraduate)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Eclectic multi-faceted interdisciplinary research interests broadly conceived, include African History; African Studies; Human Origins, Global History, Heritage Studies; Environment and Indigenous Sustainability; Comparative Slavery/Abolition in the Atlantic World; and Colonialism, Nationalism, and Decolonization. At the epistemological core of these topics, are African contributions to Global History as well responses and initiatives in shaping historical encounters and moments.
CURRENT RESEARCH FIELDS
Heritage and Environment of Akuapem
Monuments and Slavery/Slave Trade in Ghana
African Agency in Abolition
Gender and Social Formation in Ghana
Decolonization and Nationalist Historiography of Ghana
Canoemen in the Early 20th-Century Gold Coast (Ghana)
SCHOLARSHIP
Femi Kolapo and Kwabena Akurang-Parry (eds.), African Agency and European Colonialism: Latitudes of Negotiation and Containment (Lanham: University Press of America, 2007).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Colonial Ghana: African Resistance to Colonial Rule and Initiatives in Asserting African Heritage (Digi Books, forthcoming 2021)
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, African Agency in Abolition of Slavery/Pawnship in Colonial Ghana. Under Review
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, A Novel Titled: Velvet Seekers: Africans Orbiting These Parts, Submitted.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, et la., A Festschrift: Contributions of Professor R. Addo-Fening to the History and Heritage of Ghana. Work in Progress
SELECTED PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES IN ANTHOLOGIES AND JOURNALS
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Transformations in Beliefs and Practices of Ecological Inviolability: Historical and Archeological Perspectives on Mamfe-Akuapem Sacred Forest in Ghana,” Afrika Zamani No 24, 2017, 65-90.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “A Note on Brain Drain and its Net Gains: Aspects of the Civil/Public Service in Postcolonial Ghanaian Economy,” in Emmanuel Mbah and Augustine E, Ayuk, The African Civil Service Fifty Years after Independence: with Case Studies from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2017), 34-56.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Isaac Ndome, “Colonialism and African Migrations” in Martin S. Shanguhyia and Toyin Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Colonial and Postcolonial History (Palgrave, USA, 2017), 26-56.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “African Agency and Cultural Initiatives in the British Imperial Military and Labor Recruitment Drives in the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana) during the First World War,” in Ashley Jackson, (ed.), The British Empire and the First World War (London, Routledge, 2016), 12-43.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Obama's visit as a signifier of Ghanaians' "colonial mentality," in Kwasi Konadu and Clifford C. Campbell, (eds.), Ghana Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 12-23.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Slavery and Abolition in Ghana: Modes of Emancipation and African Initiatives” in Kwasi Konadu (ed.), Akan Peoples in Africa and the Diaspora: A Historical Study (Princeton, NJ. Markus Weiner, 2015), 210-229.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Katherine Clay, "Postcolonial Localized Politics and Wars in Africa: A Case Study of the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba Small Ethnic War in Northern Ghana and its Effects on Women," in Toyin Falola and Emmanuel Mbah, (ed.), Intellectual Agent, Mediator and Interlocutor: A. B. Assensoh and African Politics in Transition (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2014), 67-87
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “I Often Shed My Tears about This:” Freed Slave Children, Apprenticeship Policy, and Africa Responses in the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana), ca.1890-ca.1930,” in Paul Landau (ed.), Power of Doubt: Essays in Honor of David Henige (Madison: Parallel Press, 2011), 147-169.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Transformations in the Feminization of Unfree Domestic Labor: A Study of Abaawa or Prepubescent Female Servitude in Modern Ghana,” International Working-Class and Labor History, 78, 2010, 28-47.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Remembering the Unforgotten: Histories of Enslavement and Transformation of the African Continent,” in Peyi Soyinka-Airwele and Rita Kiki Edozie (eds.), Reframing Contemporary Africa: Politics, Culture, and Society in the Global Era (CQ Press, Washington DC: CQ Press, 2010), 82-99.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “The Rumor of the Human Sacrifice of Two Hundred Girls by Asantehene [King] Mensa Bonsu in 1881-1882 and its Consequent Colonial Policy Implications and African Responses,” in Toyin Falola and Matt Childs (eds.), The Changing Worlds of Atlantic Africa (Durham: NC.: Carolina Academic Press, 2009), 97-122.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Review Essay -“Revisiting Decolonization in Guinea” African Studies Review Essay, 52, 2 (2009), 184-187.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Katy Clay, “Africa 5000 BCE-1000 CE,” in Bonnie G. Smith (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, (Oxford University Press, 2008), 43-50.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Femi Kolapo, “Introduction” in Femi Kolapo and Kwabena Akurang-Parry (eds.), African Agency and European Colonialism: Latitudes of Negotiation and Containment (Lanham: University Press of America, 2007), 1-15.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Seeding and Harvesting Higher Education in Ghana: Historical and Contemporary Problems,” in Michael O. Afolayan (ed.) Higher Education in Post-Colonial Africa (Trenton: NJ: Africa World Press, 2007), 39-58.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “African Agency and Cultural Initiatives in the British Imperial Military and Labor Recruitment Drives in the Gold Coast (Modern Ghana) During the First World War,” African Identities, 4, 2 (2006), 213-234.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Critical African Voices: The Indigenous Press and Economic Effects of the First World War in the Gold Coast (Modern Ghana), 1914-1918," African Economic History (2006), 45-68.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Disrespect and Contempt for our Natural Rulers:’ The African Intelligentsia and the Effects of British Indirect Rule on Indigenous Rulers in the Gold Coast ca. 1912-1920,” The International Journal of Regional and Local Studies, Series 2, 2, 1 (2006), 43-65.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Making a Difference in Colonial Interventionism in Gold Mining in Wassa Fiase, Gold Coast (Ghana): The Social & Political Activism of Two Women, 1874-1893," in Jaclyn J. Gier and Laurie Mercier (eds.), Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670-2005 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 40-57).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Aborigines Rights Society,” in Thomas Benjamin (ed.) Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 (Macmillan/Gale, 2006).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Kwame Nkrumah,” in Thomas Benjamin (ed.) Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 (Macmillan/Gale, 2006).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Anticolonial Movements in Africa,” in Thomas Benjamin (ed.) Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 (Macmillan/Gale, 2006).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “A. Adu Boahen,” in Toyin Falola (ed.), The Dark Webs: Perspectives on Colonialism in Africa (Carolina Academic Press, 2005), 379-398.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'Aspects of Women's Agency and Activism in the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana), 1874-1899," The International Journal of African Historical Studies 37 3, (2004), 463-482.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “African Women and Girls,” in Merrill D. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Rape (Greenwood Press, 2004), 7-21.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'We Shall Rejoice to See the Day When Slavery Shall Cease to Exist': The Gold Coast Times and African Abolitionists in the Gold Coast," History in Africa. 31 (2004), 19-42
Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Patrice Nganang and “Introduction” in Africa: Moving Forward to the New Millennium,” Proteus, Special issue Vol. 21, 1, (2004).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Co-editor, “Africa: Moving Forward to the New Millennium,” Proteus, Special issue Vol. 21, 1, (2004).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Adu Boahen: The Historian and Public Intellectual of Our Times,” in Toyin Falola (ed.), Africa in the 20th Century: The Adu Boahen Reader (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2004), 13-22.
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Kwabena Akurang-Parry and Dorothy Akurang-Parry, "Ghana," in Toyin Falola (ed.) Teen Life in Africa (Greenwood Press, 2004), 97-114.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Steering Prepubescent Females from Slavery to Bondage: Custodial Care and Apprenticeship in Colonial Ghana, 1874-1930,” in Richard Roberts (ed.), Law, Colonialism and Children in Africa (Stanford, CA: Center for African Studies, Stanford University, 2004)
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "To Wassa Fiase for Gold: Rethinking Colonial Rule, El Dorado, Antislavery, and Chieftaincy in the Gold Coast, 1874-95,” History in Africa 30 (2003), 11-36.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'What Is and What Is Not the Law': Imprisonment for Debt and the Institution of Pawnship in the Gold Coast, 1821-1899," in Paul Lovejoy and Toyin Falola (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa (New Brunswick, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), 427-447.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "A National Resolution of Crisis: The Press, Government, Citizenry and the 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba Ethnic Conflict in Ghana," in Toyin Falola (ed.), Ghana in Africa and the World: Essays in Honor of Professor A. Adu Boahen (Africa World Press, 2003), 639-657.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Preface” to Kwesi Yeboah, The Sacred and the Profane of State Power in the Black Star of Africa (Akoben Press, 2003), 1-6.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Rethinking the 'Slaves of Salaga': Post-Proclamation Slavery in the Gold Coast, 1874-1899," Left History, 8, 1 (2002), 33-59.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Passionate Voices of Those Left Behind: Conversations with Ghanaian Professionals on the Brain Drain and Its Net Gains,” African Issues, 30, 1 (2002), 57-61.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Africa and the First World War," in Toyin Falola (ed.), African History and Culture, Vol. 3 (Carolina Academic Press, 2002), 53-68.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Africa and the Second World War," in Toyin Falola (ed.), African History and Culture, Vol. 4 (Carolina Academic Press, 2002), 49-62.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'The Loads are Heavier than Usual': Female Forced Labor in the Central Province, Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana) ca.1900-1940," African Economic History, 30 (2001), 31-51.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'With a Load on His Head and Nothing in His Hands': The Opposition of the Gold Coast (Ghana) Press to the Compulsory Labor Ordinance, 1895-ca.1899," Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana New Series, 4 & 5 (2000-2001), 83-104.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "`We Cast About for a Remedy': The Opposition of the Gold Coast Press to the Chinese Mine Labor Experiment in the Gold Coast, ca. 1874-1914," The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 34, 2 (2001), 365-384.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Otherizing Space and Cultures of Africa: The American Media's Coverage of President Bill Clinton's Visit to Ghana," Journal of Cultural Studies 3, 1 (2001), 74-89.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "'A Campaign to get Fetishes Destroyed': A Note on the Basel Mission’s Pupil Recruitment and Proselytization in the Gold Coast (Modern Ghana) 1850-1877," Historisch Tijdschrift Groniek, 151 (2001), 157-168.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "`A Smattering of Education' and Petitions as Sources: A Study of African Slave Holders' Response to Abolition in the Gold Coast," History in Africa, 27 (2000), 39-60.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Colonial Forced Labor Strategies for Road-Building in the Gold Coast (Southern Ghana) and International Anti-Forced Labor Pressures, 1900-1940." African Economic History, 28 (2000), 1-25.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “The Administration of Abolition Laws, African Responses, and Post-Proclamation Slavery in Colonial Southern Ghana, 1874-1940,” in Susan Miers and Martin Klein (eds.), Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 149-166.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “The Administration of Abolition Laws, African Responses, and Post-Proclamation Slavery in Colonial Southern Ghana, 1874-1940,” Slavery and Abolition, 19, 2 (1998), 149-166.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Slavery and Abolition in the Gold Coast (Southern Ghana): Colonial Modes of Emancipation and African Initiatives,” Ghana Studies Journal, 1 (1998), 11-34.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “The Internet and the Debasement of Women in Ghana,” Refuge, 17, 5 (1998), 13-17.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, "Slaves of Salaga and Post-Proclamation Slavery in the Gold Coast, 1874-1899," in Paul Lovejoy (ed.) Identifying Enslaved Africans: The Nigerian Hinterland and the African Diaspora. (Mimeographed: York University, Toronto, 1998).
SAMPLES OF REFREED REVIEW ESSAYS & BOOK REIEWS
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Women and Slavery: Modern Atlantic, Volume 2, by Gwn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph Miller. Athens (Ohio: Ohio University Press), 2008. pp. 329, in Itinerario.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, “Revisiting Decolonization in Guinea,” in African Studies Review, 52, 2 (2009), 184-187 – review of Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958, by Elizabeth Schmidt (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Social History of Africa Series. 2005), pp. 293; and Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, by Elizabeth Schmidt (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007), pp. 310.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Beyond Words: Discourse and Critical Agency in Africa, by Andrew Apter (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2007), pp. 171 in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery, by William Gervase Clarence-Smith (London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd., 2006), pp. 293, in Itinerario.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, the Pen-Pictures of the Modern Africans and the African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchinson, by Michel R. Doormont. (Leiden: Brill NV, 2005), pp. 493, in The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 39, 2 (2006), 367-370.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capitein, 1717-1747, translated with commentary by Grant Parker (Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner Publishers, 2001), pp. 182, in The International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 36, 1 (2003), 238-239.
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, The Sacred and the Profane of State Power in the Black Star of Africa, by Kwesi Yeboah (Akoben Press, 2003), pp. 151. On Ghanaweb (Internet).
Kwabena Akurang-Parry, After Slavery: Emancipation and Its Discontents, edited by Howard Temperly, (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 310, in The International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 36, 1 (2003), 176-175.
SELCTED CONFERENCES, SYMPOSIA, WORKSHOPS, GUEST SEPEAKER, ETC.
22-23 August, 2019 Invited Guest Benpaali Young Filmaker’s Festival, International House, University of Ghana
9-13 July Attended XVI West African Archaeological Association Colloquium, University of Ghana, Legon
23-24 May, 2019. Attended Migration, Mobility and Forced Displacement, College of Humanities, University of Ghana.
August 21-22, 2018. Mentor at a Writing Workshop on preparing manuscripts for publication organized for some Ghanaian Lecturers, Ashesi University, Berekuso.
2017. Organized “A Festival Celebrating the Exemplary Achievements of Emeritus Professor J. H. Nketia on His 96th Birthday,” at the State Banquet Hall, Accra, on September 27, 2017. This was attended by dignitaries, including His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of the Republic of Ghana.
2017. Organized an Inaugural Lecture on Emeritus Professor J. H. Kwabena Nketia at the African University College of Communications, Adabraka-Accra, March 8, 2017. Topic: “Biographing a Watershed of Ontology, Culture, History and Epistemology in the Africana World and Beyond.” Speaker: Professor Edmund Abaka, Department of History, University of Miami, Coral Cables, Florida, USA.
2016. Organized an Evening with Professor Nketia, April 26, 2016, AUCC Conference Hall
October 6, 2016. Commissioned Lecture: “In thy Light we shall see Light: Historicizing and Revitalizing Agencies of Education for the Peaceful 2016 [Ghana] National Elections and Beyond,” Presbyterian Boys’ School Old Boys’ Association Commemorative Lecture, Osu Presbyterian Church Hall.
March 18-20, 2016. Attended Historical Society of Ghana Project Meeting, Adenta. “Entangled Histories, Shared Heritage: Ghana and the Wider World, Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia: The Long Duree,” at the Institute for Research, Advocacy and Training ((INSRAT), Adenta-Accra.
October 20/21, 2015. Attended: Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology. Mission & Culture, Akropong Akuapem. “A Conference on Christian Mission, Cocoa & Social, Economic, Political & Religious Change in Ghana.
November 6, 2015. Attended: Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology. Mission & Culture, Akropong Akuapem 10th Asante-Opoku-Reindorf Memorial Lecture. “Asem Yi Di Ka’: A Critical View of Aspects of Ghana’s History through the Lens of Ephraim Amu’s Sermons,” delivered by Rev. Dr. Philip Laryea at Akropong Akuapem.
October 28-30, 2015. Gave Keynote Address: “Africa and the First World War: ‘No medal will be theirs, no role of honor will record their names, no monument will mark the graves of those who have perished,’” at the Africa and the First World: Remembrance, Memory, and Representations after Hundred Years, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
October, 28-30 2015. Co-organized: of Africa and the First World: Remembrance, Memory, and Representations after Hundred Years, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
May 22-24, 2014. Co-organized: a conference on Slavery and Contemporary Child Labor, Yuri Lodge, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.
June 27-29, 2013. Gave a Keynote Address: “China and Africa in a Crucible of Multilevel Co-operation for Development” held at the Jaria Hotel, East Legon, Ghana.
June 27-29 2013. Co-Organized with the Late Professor Kwabena Adu Boahen, a conference themed “China and Africa in a Crucible of Multilevel Co-operation for Development” held at the Jaria Hotel, East Legon, Ghana.
September 17, 2009. Invited Lecture: “What Our Views on the Subject [of Abolition] Are..:” Using the Case of Abolition in the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana) to Rethink African Agency in the Global Abolition Epoch,” University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.
March 28-29, 2008. Presented a Paper: “Transformations in Slavery and Pawnship/Debt-Bondage: A Study of Abaawa or Prepubescent Female Domestic Servitude in the Postslavery Gold Coast (Modern Ghana),” at the Organization of American Historians 101st Meeting, New York NY.
October 2007, 24-27. Co-Presented a Paper with Dr. Chima Korieh of Marquette University, “’The Intoxicated Native: ‘Illicit’ Gin Prohibition and Control in Colonial Nigeria and the Gold Coast;” and presented the conference themed “Alcohol in the Atlantic World: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Conference,” York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
March 23-26, 2006. Presented a Paper “Women in the Vortex of Violence and Migration: The 1994 Nanumba-Konkomba Conflict in Ghana,” at the Africa Conference/Workshop themed “Movements, Migrations and Displacements in Africa,” The University of Texas at Austin, USA.
EX/MEMBER OF ASSOCIATIONS
African Refugees Research and Resettlement Agency (ARRRA)
African Studies Association (USA)
Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD)
Canadian African Studies Association
Organization of American Historians (USA)
Historical Society of Ghana