On Tuesday, October 22nd at 6:30pm, Kwasi Konadu will present his book, Our Own Way in This Part of the World: Biography of an African Community, Culture, and Nation. Konadu centers Kofi Dɔnkɔ’s life story and experiences in a communography of Dɔnkɔ’s community and nation from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth, which were shaped by historical forces from colonial Ghana’s cocoa boom to decolonization and political and religious parochialism.
Kwasi Konadu is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair in Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University, where he teaches courses on Africa and the worldwide African diaspora. He is the author of Our Own Way in This Part of the World: Biography of an African Community, Culture, and Nation (Duke University Press, 2019), Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press) and Transatlantic Africa, 1440–1888 (Oxford University Press).
Copies of his book will be available for signing and purchase.
“Kwasi Konadu has written an important book for understanding social change at the local level in Ghana. His emphasis on spirituality, healing, and education among the Bono people is a model for people-centered histories of African societies.” — Benjamin Talton, author of Politics of Social Change in Ghana: The Konkomba Struggle for Political Equality
“Kwasi Konadu grounds the transformations in West African societies in ways that allow Kofi Dᴐnkᴐ to serve as a counterpoint to mainstream representations that take the perspective of Christianized, modernizing individuals on the coast. Dᴐnkᴐ was an everyday person in some ways, and exceptional in others, making his life a productive window through which to understand culture, experience, and worldview. This is an innovative and outstanding book.” — Trevor R. Getz, author of A Primer for Teaching African History: Ten Design Principles