This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
David Owusu-Ansah, professor of African history at James Madison University, will speak on “Islam in West Africa: History and Politics” 7:30 p.m. today in the Oechsle Hall auditorium.
Free and open to the public, the talk is sponsored by the Africana Scholar Speaker Series and the religion department, with support from the Lyman Coleman Fund.
A specialist on Islam in West Africa, Owusu-Ansah made a presentation on African sensibilities in regard to Muslim religion and culture at a 2001 National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar for college and university teachers hosted by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville. He will make a presentation at this year’s NEH summer seminar, “Roots: African Dimensions of the History and Culture of the Americas (Through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade),” on understanding Islam in its specific African contexts. He spoke earlier this month on “History of Islam in West Africa” at University of Memphis.
Owusu-Ansah is author of Islamic Talismanic Tradition in Nineteenth Century Asante (Edwin Mellen Press, 1991) and numerous scholarly articles on Asante history. He leads James Madison University’s four-week summer abroad program at University of Ghana, Legon, and is a member of Association for Third-World Studies. He earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and bachelor’s degree from University of Cape Coast, Ghana.