Ashesi Professor Dr. Joseph Oduro-Frimpong is one of two Ghanaian scholars named as African Humanities Programme (AHP) Postdoctoral Fellow (2014-2015) by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Ashesi is the first private university in Ghana to have one of its faculty members receive this AHP fellowship, generously supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
“I am greatly honored by this fellowship as it testifies to not only the calibre of Ashesi’s faculty, but also the cutting-edge work going on here,” Dr. Frimpong said. “I am grateful to Ashesi for granting a research leave to enable me take this award. Obviously, such a stance firmly establishes the University’s appetite for research.”
The African Humanities Program (AHP) seeks to reinvigorate the humanities in Africa through fellowship competitions and related activities in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. In partnership with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which provides funding, AHP offers African scholars an integrated set of opportunities to develop individual capacities and to promote formation of scholarly networks. The Programme supports the Carnegie Corporation’s efforts to develop and retain African academics at universities in Africa.
Dr. Oduro-Frimpong’s current work broadly focuses on Ghanaian popular culture/media. Some of his published research includes: Glocalization Trends: Examining the Case of Hip-Life Music in Contemporary Ghana, International Journal of Communication; “Better Ghana Agenda”: On Akosua Cartoons and Critical Public Debates in Contemporary Ghana, in "Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of Everyday (Stephanie Newell & Onookome Okome); and Sakawa Rituals and Cyberfraud in Ghanaian Popular Video-Movies, African Studies Review. For his fellowship year, Dr. Oduro-Frimpong will further his ongoing research on the complicated entanglement of popular media in understanding contemporary Ghanaian political culture.