Embers of Pan-Africanism examines Ghanaian intellectuals who worked to transform and radicalize the study of Africa and its diaspora in academic and intellectual centers around the Atlantic. Through a study of their scholarly trajectories, this project explores how Kwame Nkrumah’s overthrow affected the trajectory of Nkrumahism, a strand of Pan-Africanism and an ideology for African decolonization that emphasized continental and diasporic unity. In this way, I highlight why and how anti-colonial and decolonial ideas emerge as well as how insurgent ideas were sustained after the collapse of a radical government during a period of rapid decolonization from the 1960s to the 1980s. I argue that the coup that deposed Nkrumah did not herald a simple period of decline and stagnation for radical Ghanaian thinkers. Instead, it marked a moment of grassroots transformation and revolution, ushering in a dawn of innovative political and academic initiatives in Africa and the Americas. 

Bright Gyamfi is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California San Diego and a former Presidential Fellow at Northwestern University. He has received research fellowships and grants from several organizations, including the Social Science Research Council and the Fulbright-IIE, and his work has appeared in the Journal of African American History, African Studies Review, Africa is a Country, and The Conversation. He holds a BA in History (honors) and Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from Northwestern University.

This event is free an open to the public. 

Please use the Zoom link here to attend the lecture.