Bachelor of Arts (BA)

AFS 157: Chieftaincy and Governance in Africa

aobobie — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 13:39:18 +0000

AFS 157: Chieftaincy and Governance in Africa

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

aobobie Thu, 04/04/2024 - 13:39

The course explores chieftaincy as an institution that started several years ago before the advent of colonialism. Modern democracy developed through indirect and direct rule that existed and used by the local traditional rulers. Students will learn the origin of chieftaincy as the traditional institution during the period of hunting and gathering, horticulture and agrarian and society through to industrial and postindustrial society.

The course will discuss the basic ethnic groups in Ghana namely; the Akan, the mole Dagbani, the Guans, the Ga, Adangbe and the Ewes. Students will learn the basic similarities and differences that exist among the various groups in Ghana making them co-exist in Ghana. The first semester will discuss the Akan group especially the Ashanti.

AFS 152: African Sacred Worldview and Science

aobobie — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 13:27:46 +0000

AFS 152: African Sacred Worldview and Science

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

aobobie Thu, 04/04/2024 - 13:27

Given Africa’s stupendous resources, Africans have undoubtedly been bastardised since the expansion of Islam from Arabia to North Africa and sub-Saharan in the 17th and 9th Centuries, respectively and Century Europe’s entry into its modernity since the 16th Century, Africa has been framed as the human Other. Through racist-laden theories such as the Hamitic hypothesis, the Euro-Arab and more recently Asiatic worlds have pushed Africa to the backwaters of history. Of course, Africans have also contributed to their own predicaments as compradors. For this reason, the course, Africa’s sacred worldview, never assumes that Africans are irrational, non-scientific, and incurably religious in a “modern” world. Instead, the course title provides us with insights into the African world, and of course, the human world, which is deeply non-binary in all terms – including time and social structures and cultural creations.

AFS 158: Family, Kinship and Descent Systems

pnasaa — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 09:45:08 +0000

AFS 158: Family, Kinship and Descent Systems

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

pnasaa Fri, 02/21/2020 - 09:45

This course is intended to assist students familiarize with the definitions and classification of the different types of family, kinship and descent systems in Africa from anthropological and sociological perspectives. Highlights will be on the importance and functions of the family, the kinship arrangement and the descent groups, with reference to ancestral genealogy, and the conservative roles they help to perpetuate to the utmost benefit of generations. Students will be encouraged to attempt to trace their family roots and kinship through the descent groups. They will be required to interrogate the systems, identify the impact of modernity on the systems, and debate the place and future of the systems in contemporary scheme of social arrangement.

AFS 151: Africa in the Contemporary World

pnasaa — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 09:43:06 +0000

AFS 151: Africa in the Contemporary World

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

pnasaa Fri, 02/21/2020 - 09:43

This course introduces students to the major social, economic, and political developments in Africa. It focuses on significant issues of personalities, debates, strategies, and challenges facing contemporary African in the light of historical and global contexts. The major issues to consider are Socio-Economic Crises; Activists and Struggle for Political Independence; Democratic Rules and International Relations. Issues of Peace and Security, Civil Society and Governance, African Unity will be discussed. Students are expected to acquire better understanding of the major issues of personalities and institutions in the socio-economic and political developments in Africa, and how Africa’s past has influenced its development; the challenges facing African States, and Africa’s relationship with the rest of the contemporary world.

AFS 185: Clothing and Development in Africa

pnasaa — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 09:40:03 +0000

AFS 185: Clothing and Development in Africa

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

pnasaa Fri, 02/21/2020 - 09:40

The course explores the importance of cloth, clothing, and fashion in Africa’s development. It takes a historical journey on how Africa was integrated into the global economy through cloth trading. Students will learn about how colonialism used clothing as an imperial tool to define Africans and how Africans in turn used clothing as a political tool in their struggle for independence. Clothing was further utilized to shape the new independent identity and nation building in Africa. Post-independence Africa has witnessed phases of political, social and economic cosmopolitanism in fashion, through the rise of second-hand clothing, trade liberalization and the current rise of innovative fashion designers.