Photo of kente cloth

Wrapped in Pride:

Ghanaian
Kente and
African
American
Identity


Scheduled Activities

Kente in Context

February 5, 7:30 p.m.
Booth Library West Reading

Room Kente cloth has an important symbolic meaning in Ghana especially with regard to royal ranks and public honors. It has in recent times also become powerfully evocative as a broader symbol of African Culture abroad. This talk will examine the development of kente traditions and some of its traditional uses within Ghana as well as some of the more recent works that kente cloth has inspired.

Robert S. Petersen, presenter, associate professor, Art

A Self-Efficacious People: Yearning to Learn

February 17, 4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440

As a recent invited guest at the African Methodist Episcopal University in Liberia, Dr. Pearson will share her experiences with the African people. In particular, she will share how African people have been self-efficacious in their pursuit for freedom, dignity, and honor, particularly in education. In her sojourn, she served as acting president with 71 full-time instructional personnel, and approximately 4,000 students.

Mildred Pearson, presenter, assistant professor, Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Level Education

Kente Iconicity and �Black Atlantic� Cultural Politics

February 19, 7:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440

This presentation situates the rise of the brightly colored kente as an internationally recognizable icon of Black pride in three interwoven strands of history: the European colonization of West Africa, the movements for African political independence and civil rights in the United States, and the emergence of �Black Atlantic� elites in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbeans and Europe. An examination of these histories is critical for an understanding of the deployment of the kente and other cultural artifacts and practices in the making of global African identities.

Klevor Abo, presenter, instructor, African American Studies

Film � Daughters of the Dust

February 24, 7:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440

An award-winning and wonderful, beautiful film directed by an African American, Julie Dash, about the Gullah culture of South Carolina, and how Gullah people cherish the ways of their West African ancestors (1991).

Ann Boswell, moderator, professor, English

An Introduction to Kofi N. Awoonor: Reconciliation and Atonement in Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa

February 26, 4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440

Arguably Ghana�s premiere postcolonial poet, Awoonor�s work spans several genres and five decades. Interweaving poetry and prose, myth and history, Awoonor moves from exile and satirical critique of modern Ghana in This Earth, My Brother (1971) toward return and reconciliation Comes the Voyager�(1992). This lecture introduces Awoonor�s work through selected readings from and commentary on his poetry with an emphasis on his mythic rendering of returning to Africa as an Ewe man soon to serve as representative to the United Nations of the nation that had once detained him on subversion charges for nearly a year. Awoonor�s career exemplifies the compassion of black humanism that fashioned his politics of poetry and the poetics of politics.

Michael Loudon, presenter, professor, English

The Ceremonial Aspects of Ghanaian Kente

March 3, 4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440

Johnson Kofi Kuma, a native of Ghana, will present a workshop on the ceremonial aspects of Ghanaian Kente. His presentation will include a slide presentation and discussion.

Johnson Kofi Kuma, presenter, professor, Library Services