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The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions, and Economic Enterprise in Accra, Ghana, invite applications to participate in a two-week workshop, to be held 12–26 July 2009 in Accra, Ghana. The purpose of the workshop is to expand and deepen the connections among scholars from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Americas begun at the Omohundro Institute conference,"The bloody Writing is for ever torn": Domestic and International Consequences of the First Governmental Efforts to Abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade, that took place in August 2007, at Accra and Elmina. Applicants to the 2009 workshop may be advanced graduate students or faculty working on any aspect of the theme “Africa, Europe, and the Americas, 1500–1700.” Spaces have been reserved for twelve scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa and eight located in other parts of the world.

The workshop will provide the cost of travel from the participants’ home institutions to Accra and return. All local expenses will be covered, including accommodations, meals, and brief excursions to Kumasi and Elmina, Ghana. The workshop is sponsored by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions, and Economic Enterprise.

Professor Irene K. Odotei of the University of Ghana and Professor Joseph C. Miller of the University of Virginia in the United States will lead the workshop. Professor Ronald Hoffman, Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and Professor Emmanuel Akyeampong of Harvard University and Senior Fellow, International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions, and Economic Enterprise will also participate. Professors Odotei and Miller will chair twice daily discussions of a wide range of current scholarship, based on materials to be circulated and considered in advance by all workshop participants. The first week will be devoted to readings and discussions along two tracks: (1) regional perspectives on the Atlantic from Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Europe, and (2) African regions’ particular histories and cultures. The aim is to acquaint non-Africanist Atlanticists with African regional components of the field, including an emphasis on local sources and issues unfamiliar to non-specialists, and to allow Africa-based scholars to embed their regionally oriented scholarship in broader Atlantic contexts. The directors of the workshop will determine the final list of readings based on the interests of the workshop participants, and it is expected that the dialogue between African and Atlantic scholarship will enrich both sides in equal measure.

In the workshop’s second week, participants will discuss the ongoing research projects presented by their workshop colleagues, within the framework of issues developed during the preceding week of readings. It is expected that all participants will be substantively engaged in research and/or teaching subjects related to Atlantic history and that the draft versions of their scholarship that they will submit for pre-circulation among the invited members of the workshop will be sufficiently robust to benefit from the cross-regional and cross-disciplinary discussions.

Applicants should submit a one-page letter of intent, a short professional c.v. (no more than three pages), and a 500-word outline of the research they intend to contribute, taking care to specify the sources being used, the current state of the project, and the potential gains that they envision from participation in the workshop. Applicants should also arrange for two substantive letters of reference, to be submitted on institutional or official letterhead.

The deadline for receipt of these materials at the Omohundro Institute is 27 December 2008.

Travel funding for participants invited to the workshop will be authorized upon receipt of the research paper that they intend to circulate for discussion. A paper of at least 8–10 pages must be received at the Omohundro Institute by 1 June 2009. Timely advance circulation of members’ research is intended to enable all participants to acquaint themselves with the scholarship of their colleagues before arriving in Ghana, thus to maximize the prospects for informed and substantive discussions around the readings to be selected. Workshop participants who are based in sub-Saharan Africa will receive packets containing all the reading materials to be discussed. Everyone accepted into the workshop will receive copies of the draft research papers.

Application materials and letters of reference may be posted as digital attachments to http://oieahc.wm.edu/conferences/african_seminar/application/apply.cfm or by mail to:

African Seminar, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture,

P.O. Box 8781, Williamsburg,

VA 23187-8781.

_{Instructions for submission of the research paper will be sent to each applicant accepted for the workshop.}

A selection committee composed of the directors of the workshop, university faculty in Ghana, and representatives of the Omohundro Institute will assess all complete applications with respect to, (1) the intellectual, research, or methodological substance of the proposed project and its relevance to the theme (“Africa, Europe, and the Americas, 1500–1700”) of the workshop; (2) its potential for productive collaboration with other projects proposed; and (3) the academic qualifications of the applicant. Invited participants will be notified by email on 2 February 2009. They must accept, or decline, the invitation by 16 February.

Please submit your scholarship application by December 27, 2008.
If you have questions, please contact Ted Maris-Wolf, Coordinator, African Seminar, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, at 757-645-6356 or edmari@wm.edu. Workshop organizers will review the applications in January. Scholarship recipients will be notified by February 2, 2009.

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Administration
The Institute is autonomous with its offices at 99 Balansa street, Adenta, Accra, near the campus of the University of Ghana. It is a financially independent entity, though working closely with institutions such as the University of Ghana. The Institute is managed by a Directorate made up of the Director and the senior fellows. The supporting staff is comprised of an administrator and receptionist who are both bilingual (English and French).

Board of Advisors
The Institute will have a board of advisors drawn from academia, business and policy worlds, and the media. Alhaji Asoma Banda, a prominent Ghanaian businessman, has agreed to chair the board of advisors. Other members of the board include Mr. Paul Maritz (Philanthropist, USA), Mr. Alfred Fawundu (former Director of UNDP, Ghana), and Mr. Edward Boateng (Global Media Alliance, Ghana, formerly of CNN). The Advisory Board will chart broad policy directions as well as advise on programs for the Institute.

Fellows
photo of professor irene Professor Irene K. Odotei - IIAS Director
Professor Irene Odotei obtained her Ph.D. in History from the University of Ghana in 1972. That same year she was appointed a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, where she rose to become its acting director in 1998 after heading the history and politics section between 1985 and 1998. Professor Odotei is an expert on Ga oral traditions and traditional governance, Danish presence in Ghana, and chieftaincy. Her work has expanded to incorporate gender and household structures and economies, becoming an authority on artisanal fisheries in Ghana and along the coast of West Africa. She has held visiting research fellowships at several institutions including the Universities of Copenhagen, Leiden, Trondheim, Bergen and UCLA. She has been the project manager and coordinator of NUFU projects run jointly by Norwegian Universities and the University of Ghana, including the Asafo History Programme. She also served as the project manager and coordinator of the Chieftaincy, Governance and Development Project funded by the Ford Foundation. Professor Odotei is the author of several publications, including Sea Power, Money Power: Migration of Ghanaian Fishermen and Women to the Republic of Benin (2000); The Artisanal Marine Fishing Industry: A Historical Review (2002); and Royal Rites: Death, Burial and Installation of an Asante King (2001). Her film documentaries have reviewed the funeral of the late Asantehene (King of Asante) Opoku Ware II and the installation of the present Asantehene Osei Tutu II. Professor Odotei is currently the President of the Historical Society of Ghana and the Director of the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions and Economic Enterprise (IIAS). Resume

photo of professor akyeampong Professor Emmanuel Akyeampong, History, Harvard University
Emmanuel Akyeampong is Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He was appointed Loeb Harvard College Professor in July 2005. Akyeampong is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Council Member of the International African Institute, and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK). He served as chair of the Committee on African Studies at Harvard from July 2002 to June 2006. He is the author of several books and articles including Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c.1800 to Recent Times (1996); Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-Social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana, c.1850 to Recent Times (2001); and editor of Themes in West Africa’s History (2006). His research interests are social history, comparative slavery and the African diaspora, environmental history, and the history of disease and medicine. Akyeampong is an editor of the Journal of African History, and has served on the editorial advisory boards of African Affairs, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Ghana Studies, the Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, and Research Review. Resume

image of professor ato quayson Professor Ato Quayson, Cultural and Literary Studies, University of Toronto
Ato Quayson is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, where he has been since August 2005. He completed his BA a tthe University of Ghana with First Class Honours (English and Arabic) and took his PhD from Cambridge University in 1995. He then went on tothe University of Oxford as a Research Fellow, returning to Cambridge in Sept 1995 to become a Fellow at Pembroke College and a member of the Faculty of English where he eventually became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. Prof Quayson has published widely on African literature,postcolonial studies and in literary theory. His publications include: Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing (Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1997) Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000) (with David Theo Goldberg) Relocating Postcolonialism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) Calibrations: Reading for the Social (Minnesota University Press, 2003) Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (forthcoming Columbia University Press, 2007). He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Penguin Classics edition of Nelson Mandela's, No Easy Walk to Freedom (2002). Resume

Photo of de-Graft Aikins Dr Ama de-Graft Aikins, Social Psychology and Health, University of Cambridge

Ama de-Graft Aikins is a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (Department of Social and Developmental Psychology) and LSE Fellow (Institute of Social Psychology). She is a social psychologist with a primary interest in representations and experiences of chronic physical and mental illnesses among African communities. Her doctoral research, completed at the LSE in 2004, examined experiences of rural and urban Ghanaians living with diabetes within the contexts of their families, communities and pluralistic healthcare systems. She received an ESRC Postdoctoral Award to extend the theoretical and policy implications of this research. A key development from this is a project, funded by the British Academy, to develop a UK-Africa Academic partnership on chronic disease. The partnership constitutes thirty social and medical scientists from institutions in the UK, the Netherlands, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon with collective research expertise on asthma, cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, mental and neuro-degenerative disorders and sickle-cell disease. Through publishing, cross-country research and postgraduate support, the partnership aims to offer a practical and sustainable interdisciplinary model for chronic disease research and intervention in Africa.

Ama’s academic research builds on extensive working experience on chronic disease experiences and care and mental health in Ghana and the UK, including research consulting for Ghanaian (e.g Ministry of Health), African (e.g. African Economic Research Consortium) and international organisations (e.g. Overseas Development Institute, Management Sciences for Health). She has published on diabetes, mental illness and health systems in psychology and medical journals such as the Journal of Health Psychology, the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, and the British Medical Journal. In 2007 she co-edited a special issue on “Health, Disease and Healthcare in Africa” for the Journal of Health Psychology (Vol 12, No 3). She is currently co-editing a special issue on “Africa’s Chronic Disease Burden” for the open access online journal Globalisation and Health. Resume

Photo of Dr. Atuguba Dr. Raymond Atuguba, Law, University of Ghana
Dr. Raymond Atuguba has a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB) from the University of Ghana, Legon, a Master of Laws Degree (LLM) in Human Rights and International Finance from the Harvard Law School and a Doctor of Juridical Science Degree (SJD) in development Studies and Institution Building from Harvard Law School. He is also a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana, having been called to the Ghana Bar in 1999. He has worked with several international organisations including the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) and the Peoples Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE). He has consulted extensively for international and national organisations including the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, DFID, USAID and GTZ. He was one of Ghana’s and the World Bank’s consultants who worked on the Legislative and Judicial Review aspects of the Land Administration Project (LAP) between 2004 and 2005. Dr. Atuguba has several publications and research reports to his credit. These mostly relate to the intersection of law, policy and human rights. Dr. Atuguba teaches Commercial Law, Conflict of Laws and Administrative Law at the Faculty of Law and the Business School, University of Ghana. Resume

Photo of Mr. Baah-Boateng Dr. William Baah-Boateng, Economics, University of Ghana & IIAS Coordinator of Programs (+233 244 230097)
William Baah-Boateng is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Ghana where he has been lecturing since May 2000. He completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Ghana after undertaking a coursework at the Department of Economics, Harvard University. His doctoral research examined the gender perspective of labour market discrimination in Ghana. His primary research focuses on economics of labour, industry, public economics and development economics with special interest in the area of employment, poverty, gender, development of SMEs, and public finance. Dr. Baah-Boateng has a number of publications and research reports to his credit which mostly relate to employment and poverty alleviation; gender segregation in the labour market; fiscal space and the MDG, employment indicators and the MDG; and growth and transformation of SMEs. He has consulted for a number of local and international organisations including Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), Ministries of Finance and Employment, International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the World Bank. He is currently consulting for the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW) in Ghana as Labour Advisor. Resume

Photo of Mr. d'Souza Salvador L. d'Souza, New Media, Rotterdam University
Salvador Lawrence d'Souza (M.A.) is a New Media specialist, a mass media and information science consultant. He is an alumini of the Piet Zwart Institute for postgraduate studies and research in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Mr. d'Souza has a background in Mass Media Film & Video communications design from India. He has been on several electronic and print productions, Music scoring, Photography & Compositing projects. Salvador is an adept Post Production digital intermediary (DI) expert and has served as Creative Director at Color Chart Ltd. and also as Media and ICT Manager for Historical Society of Ghana, Culture Education and Technology Network, AND at the Sathyam Technology Centre in Mumbai. Dhr. d'Souza is interested in New Media research, open source development platform and responsible for Information Technology and media solutions at IIAS. Resume | Blog

Funding
The Institute will be funded through extra mural funding. Research grants, consultancies, affiliation fees for foreign scholars, the use of the Institute’s residential suites by visiting fellows and its’ premises for workshops and other academic events constitute some of the anticipated sources of funding.