#Ghana – University of Wisconsin Press Blog

This week, the UW Press has been exhibiting at the annual African Studies Association Conference in Boston. The conference is wrapping up, but if you’re attending, there’s still one last day to stop by booth 314 for discounts on books and journals. And if you’re not in Boston, here’s a look at our new and notable titles in African Studies.

Holding the World Together, edited by Nwando Achebe and Claire Robertson

Featuring contributions from some of the most accomplished scholars on the topic, Holding the World Together explores the rich and varied ways women have wielded power across the African continent, from the precolonial period to the present. This comprehensive volume, focusing on agency and avoiding stereotypical depictions, features essays on the representation of African women, their role in national liberation movements, their incorporation into the world economy, changing family and marriage systems, economic impacts on their lives and livelihoods, their unique challenges in the areas of health and disease, and their experiences with religious fundamentalism, violence, and slavery.

Health in a Fragile State, by John M. Janzen

Based on extensive field research in the Manianga region of the Lower Congo, Health in a Fragile State is an anthropological account of public health and health care in the 1980s and 1990s after the collapse of the Congolese state. This work brings into focus John M. Janzen’s earlier books on African health and healing, revealing the collaborative effort by local, national, and international agencies to create viable alternative institutions to those that represented the centralized state. With this volume, Janzen documents and analyzes the realignment of existing institutions and the creation of new ones that shape health and healing.

Throughout, Janzen explores the manner in which power and information, including science, are legitimized in the preservation and improvement of health. Institutional validity and knowledge empower citizens and health practitioners to gain the upper hand over the region’s principal diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and HIV/AIDS.

African Economic History, edited by Mariana Candido, Toyin Falola, Toby Green, and Paul E. Lovejoy

African Economic History publishes scholarly essays in English and French on the economic history of African societies from precolonial times to the present. It features research in a variety of fields and time periods, including studies on labor, slavery, trade and commercial networks, economic transformations, colonialism, migration, development policies, social and economic inequalities, and poverty. The audience includes historians, economists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, policymakers, and a range of other scholars interested in African economies—past and present.

Spirit Children, by Aaron R. Denham

Some babies and toddlers in parts of West Africa are considered spirit children—nonhumans sent from the forest to cause misfortune and destroy the family. These are usually deformed or ailing infants, or children whose births coincide with tragic events or who display unusual abilities. Aaron R. Denham offers a nuanced ethnographic study of this phenomenon in Northern Ghana that examines both the motivations of the families and the structural factors that lead to infanticide. He also turns the lens on the prevailing misunderstandings about this controversial practice. Denham offers vivid accounts of families’ life-and-death decisions that engage the complexity of the context, local meanings, and moral worlds of those confronting a spirit child.

Ghana Studies, edited by Carina Ray and Kofi Baku

Ghana Studies is the journal of the Ghana Studies Association, an international affiliate of the African Studies Association. Published annually, Ghana Studies strives to provide a forum for cutting edge original research about Ghana’s society, culture, environment, and history. All of the scholarly articles in Ghana Studies are peer-reviewed by two anonymous referees, coordinated by an editorial team based in both North America and Ghana. Since its first issue in 1998, Ghana Studies has published significant work by leading scholars based in Ghana, the United States, Canada, and Europe. In addition, Ghana Studies features occasional material, source reports, and book reviews. It also serves to provide official notice of fellowships and prizes awarded by the Ghana Studies Association.

At last week’s annual convention of the African Studies Association in San Diego, the University of Wisconsin Press announced that it is the new publisher of three journals in the field: African Economic History, Ghana Studies, and Mande Studies. The journals had previously been published by the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in affiliation with the Ghana Studies Association and Mande Studies Association.

“The University of Wisconsin Press has been an active and award-winning book publisher in African studies for more than fifty years, often partnering with the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s prestigious African Studies Program on book series and conference exhibits,” noted press director Dennis Lloyd. “Publishing these journals is a natural extension of that collaboration and of our commitment to the field of African Studies.”

The African Studies Program at UW–Madison will continue to be involved as a collaborator and liaison. Neil Kodesh, ASP director, said the transition to UWP “will result in much higher quality production and customer service, while maintaining affordability at a nonprofit university press. And the new designs look great!”

“It was exciting to reintroduce these journals at the ASA conference,” said Toni Gunnison, Journals Manager at UWP. “It is our priority to make the journal content more dynamic and available online. We will be able to improve each journal’s international visibility through online services, marketing, customer service and fulfillment, and advertising. UWP publishes fifteen journals covering in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields, so we have the staff and expertise to enhance these journals in a cost-efficient way.”

UWP’s production manager for journals, John Ferguson, has given each journal a fresh new cover and interior text design.

“In approaching the redesign of these journals, I asked the faculty and staff at the UW–Madison African Studies program for ideas. We really wanted covers that represent the research content of the journals. Catherine Reiland, interim associate director at ASP, connected me with Mary Hark in UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology. The patterns that appear on the journals are photographic representations of indigo-dyed handmade papers that Mary created with botanical fiber collected in Kumasi, Ghana.”

African Economic History was founded in 1974 by the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin and subsequently has also been affiliated York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas. The annual journal publishes multidisciplinary work in English and French on the economic history of African societies from precolonial times to the present. The journal is edited by Mariana Candido (University of Kansas), Jennifer Lofkrantz (State University of New York–Geneseo), and Paul E. Lovejoy (York University).

Ghana Studies is the journal of the Ghana Studies Association, an international affiliate of the African Studies Association. Published annually, Ghana Studies provides a forum for peer-reviewed, cutting-edge research about Ghana’s society, culture, environment and history. In addition, it features occasional material, source reports, book reviews, and notices of fellowships and prizes awarded by the Ghana Studies Association. Since its first issue in 1998, Ghana Studies has published significant work by leading scholars based in Ghana, the US, Canada, and Europe. The journal is edited by Akousua Adomako Ampofo (University of Ghana) and Sean Hanretta (Northwestern University).

Mande Studies was founded in 1999 by MANSA, the Mande Studies Association. It is an international, interdisciplinary annual journal publishing scholarly essays in English and French on the history, arts, anthropology, sociology, development, and contemporary issues relating to the diverse peoples and cultures of the Mande diaspora of West Africa. The Mande world includes parts of the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana. The journal is edited by Peter Mark (Wesleyan University) and Ismaela Samba Traoré (Institut des sciences humaines, Mali).

For more information, contact:
Sheila Leary, Communications Director, The University of Wisconsin Press
publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu 608-263-0734 uwpress.wisc.edu

Tag Archives: #Ghana

African Studies Association 2019

University of Wisconsin Press launches three African Studies journals