
Beyond the Political Spider
Critical Issues in African Humanities
Kwesi Yankah(Author)
NISC (Pty) Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 28. October 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
340 pages
978-1-920033-80-4 (ISBN)
Description
Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities by Kwesi Yankah is the first title in the newly established African Humanities Association (AHA) publication series.
By integrating his own biography into a critique of the global politics of knowledge production, Yankah, through a collection of essays, interrogates critical issues confronting the Humanities that spawn intellectual hegemonies and muffle African voices. Using the example of Ghana, he brings under scrutiny, amongst others, endemic issues of academic freedom, gender inequities, the unequal global academic order, and linguistic imperialism in language policies in governance.
In the face of these challenges, the author deftly navigates the complex terrain of indigenous knowledge and language in the context of democratic politics, demonstrating that agency can be liberatory when emphasising indigenous knowledge, especially expressed through the idiom of local languages and symbols, including Ananse, the protean spider, folk hero in Ghana and most parts of the pan-African world.
More details
Series
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
588 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-920033-80-4 (9781920033804)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Kwesi Yankah is the author of two award winning books: Speaking for the Chief, which won the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences Gold Book award and The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric, winner of the Ghana Book Award. The latter was based on his award-winning doctoral dissertation at Indiana University, USA, 1985. He also co-edited African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Yankah has held fellowships at several universities including, Stanford, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkley, Pennsylvania and Birmingham. He was from 2009 to 2017 an Associate Director of the African Humanities Program, established by the American Council of Learned Societies. Between 2017 and 2021 he was Ghana's Minister of State in Charge of Tertiary Education. Yankah is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Folklore Society.