Annotated, scholarly edition of the original landmark anthology, Voices of Ghana, containing poetry, plays, stories and essays first broadcast on radio in the years leading up to Ghana's independence. Ghana's first radio programme of original literature, The Singing Net, began in 1955 as part of the development of a national radio station in the years leading to independence in 1957. Its central aim was to bring Ghanaianwriters to the forefront of cultural programming as part of the Africanisation of radio in Ghana. It was a critical cultural expression of the radical changes that were unfolding across the colonial world. The programme successfully introduced listeners to a series of pioneering Ghanaian authors who would go on to become significant figures of Anglophone West African literature in the early postcolonial decades: Efua Sutherland, Frank Parkes, Amu Djoleto, Geormbeeyi Adali-Mortty, Albert Kayper-Mensah, Kwesi Brew, Cameron Duodu, J.H. Nketia and many others. The anthology, Voices of Ghana (1958) is a collection of the poetry, short stories, play scripts and critical discussions that were aired on the Gold Coast Broadcasting Service (later the Ghana Broadcasting System) (1954-1958). Both The Singing Net and Voices of Ghana were edited by the BBC producer, Henry Swanzy. The context of Ghana's independence, the singularity of the anthology's history, and the significance of many of the writers all contribute to the importance of this text. This second edition is a timely intervention into recent debateswithin postcolonial studies and world literature on the importance of broadcast culture in the dissemination of "new literatures" from the colonial world. It includes an unabridged version of the 1958 text, a new introduction andfootnoted annotations, which draw on extensive research undertaken in Ghana and Britain. It will appeal to a general readership with an interest in Ghanaian literature, 1950s broadcast culture, the figure of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the making of a national literature in the era of decolonisation, as well as engaging scholars. The new edition presents a deeply insightful and engaging history of Voices of Ghana and reintroduces the original works on theoccasion of the anthology's 60th anniversary. Victoria Ellen Smith is a Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Ghana, Legon Ghana & Nigeria: Sub-Saharan Publishers

James Burns provides a detailed ethnography of a group of female musicians from the Dzigbordi community dance-drumming club from the rural town of Dzodze, located in South-Eastern Ghana. Dzigbordi is part of a genre known as adekede, or female songs of redress, where women musicians critique gender relations in society. Burns uses audio and video interviews, recordings of rehearsals and performances and detailed collaborative analyses of song texts, dance routines and performance practice to address important methodological shifts in ethnomusicology that outline a more humanistic perspective of music cultures. The book will appeal to those interested in African Studies, Gender Studies and Oral Literature, as well as ethnomusicology and includes a DVD documentary.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.

Voices of African Women is a collection of essays by accomplished women's rights lawyers from Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania. In the last decade, women's human rights have been the focus of significant attention at the international level. There remains, however, a dearth of information concerning the application and relevance of international norms at grassroots levels within Africa. There are few works about women's human rights within Africa that are actually written by African women lawyers and human rights activists. This book offers a glimpse into the lives of women in Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania; it describes -- in their own words -- the challenges these activists face in implementing international human rights norms at the local and national levels. "The contributors are a unique set of talented analysts... Introductions for each chapter are by Johanna Bond, whose precise summaries and analyses of the topics systematize what would otherwise be repetitive evidence found in similar circumstances in these African countries. Summing Up: Recommended." -- CHOICE Magazine, November 2005 "The book is well worth space on...professionals' bookshelves." -- African Studies Association, 2006 "The book is useful and essential reading for anyone interested in women's rights in Africa. This has to be the most detailed and up-to-date book on women's rights in this region." -- Modern African Studies

The distinguished scholar Steven Feld shaped the field of the anthropology of sound and music. In this new work, he looks at the vernacular cosmopolitanism of a group of jazz players in Ghana, including some who have traveled widely, played with American jazz greats, and blended Coltrane with local instruments and philosophy. He describes their cosmopolitan outlook as an accoustemology, a way of knowing the world through sound. Feld combines memoir, biography, ethnography, and history, telling a story of diasporic intimacy and dialogue that contests both American nationalist and Afrocentric narrations of jazz history.

It's an awful story. It's an awful story. Why do you want to bring this up now?--Chief Awusa of Atorkor For centuries, the story of the Atlantic slave trade has been filtered through the eyes and records of white Europeans. In this watershed book, historian Anne C. Bailey focuses on memories of the trade from the African perspective. African chiefs and other elders in an area of southeastern Ghana-once famously called "the Old Slave Coast"-share stories that reveal that Africans were traders as well as victims of the trade. Bailey argues that, like victims of trauma, many African societies now experience a fragmented view of their past that partially explains the blanket of silence and shame around the slave trade. Capturing scores of oral histories that were handed down through generations, Bailey finds that, although Africans were not equal partners with Europeans, even their partial involvement in the slave trade had devastating consequences on their history and identity. In this unprecedented and revelatory book, Bailey explores the delicate and fragmented nature of historical memory.