Ashesi's core curriculum consists of an interdisciplinary liberal arts program that includes courses in the humanities and social sciences, as well as mathematics and preparatory business and computer science courses. The core curriculum is supplemented by a set of courses in African Studies, which help develop students' understanding of Africa's past, present and possible future trajectory.
AS 111 Ashesi Success
Required for All First-Years
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester II
Course Type: Seminar, Experiential
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 0; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 0
A program designed to enhance your overall success in college and in life. The most important objective of the program is personal empowerment: learning who you are as a college student, learning who you are as a human being and what you stand for, learning how to speak up when your values are in conflict with those around you, and learning what it takes for you to keep yourself balanced and on course to success. When you are empowered, your actions are more purposeful and your choices more deliberate. When you are empowered, you are more engaged and more motivated every day. And when you are empowered, you have a greater sense of well-being and enjoyment in life.
Core Course Electives
First Year Experience Courses
FYE 002 English Bridge (Optional)
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
Students will hone their reading writing skills through intensive workshops focused on developing their reading comprehension and writing clarity and concision. This optional module is for students who qualified for this module based on the first week diagnostic assessment and for any other students who would like to join the course.
ENGL 001 Writing, Public Speaking, and Multimedia Communications
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
FYE 001 How to Communicate Like a Leader (Optional)
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
In this intensive, two-week course experience, students model leadership scenarios by learning the elements of oral communication by leaders, analyzing real-world examples, and finally role-playing competing interests while collaborating on an original speech. This course builds on skills learned in Written, Oral, and Multimedia Communication class in Ashesi’s the first-year experience in Semester 1 of the academic year 2020-2021 by reflecting on the motivations and tradeoffs involved in pleasing different constituencies of the audience for a speech. Structured discussion and reflection enables students to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges inherent in winning support while remaining ethical.
ENGL 112 Written and Oral Communication
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course offers an introduction to the practices of reading and writing for general university studies. Students will develop academic writing and analytical skills through critical reading, group discussion and various writing assignments. Strong emphasis will be placed on revising, with weekly workshops to clarify assignments and expectations and/or receive recommendations and feedback on works in progress.
ENGL 113 Text and Meaning
Required for all MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
Text and Meaning takes a fresh approach to the study of literary and critical theory, integrating critical thinking into activities to increase students’ very ability to learn and question. It is designed to teach students critical thinking skills, how to pose questions, propose hypotheses, gather and analyze data, and make arguments. To accomplish this, the term ‘text’ is used in its broadest possible sense, and includes literature, newspapers, magazines, speeches, advertising, websites, blogs, film, music and documentaries. Put simply, Text and Meaning encourages students to do their own intellectual fishing, instead of waiting to be served.
SOAN 325 Research Methods
Required for all BA, MIS & CS Majors
Prerequisite: Statistics, or Statistics for Engineering & Economics
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The course is designed to provide the student with broad fundamentals of research methods. To this end, students will be introduced to quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches for conducting research. Students will be guided through the various stages of conducting research; i.e. writing research proposals, where they will identify problems to study; collecting information by conducting appropriate literature review; collecting appropriate primary and/or secondary data; analyzing data; writing mini reports; and critiquing published articles. Class time will be devoted to lectures, data analysis and in-class assignments. The course is hands-on, using R as the main software.
Leadership Seminar Series
The Leadership Seminar Series is a series of interdisciplinary seminars designed to promote self-awareness among Ashesi's students and to expose them to the ideas of great historical thinkers and contemporary leaders. Students will be asked to think broadly and to explore how they might use the examples set by other leaders to achieve their goals in their future professional lives. The leadership seminar series draws upon experts in different fields of corporate, social and academic life. Students must complete the full series in order to graduate from Ashesi University. The series consists of the following seminars:
SOAN 111 Leadership Seminar 1
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): Ashesi Success; Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 1.5; Ashesi Credit Units: 0.5; Hours per week classroom: 1.5; Hours per week discussion: 0
A program designed to enhance your overall success in college and in life. The most important objective of the program is personal empowerment: learning who you are as a college student, learning who you are as a human being and what you stand for, learning how to speak up when your values are in conflict with those around you, and learning what it takes for you to keep yourself balanced and on course to success. When you are empowered, your actions are more purposeful and your choices more deliberate. When you are empowered, you are more engaged and more motivated every day. And when you are empowered, you have a greater sense of well-being and enjoyment in life.
This course explores such questions as “What is good leadership? “What are the attributes of a Great Leader? and “What does a good leader do or not do? In this seminar, students will do readings of various historical and contemporary public and business leaders and explore the ethical dimensions of leadership. This is a half unit seminar taught in the format of discussions and assigned readings.
Course content addresses the purpose of leadership and the qualities of a great leader. Students will explore ethics and civic engagement in course readings and discussions. By comparing frameworks for leadership and ethical decision-making and applying those frameworks to leaders in a variety of contexts, students learn to analyze and evaluate the leadership they observe around them. Weekly writing assignments build students’ skills in reflective writing. In-class discussions and debate build students verbal communication and presentation skills.
SOAN 221 Leadership Seminar 2
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 1.5; Ashesi Credit Units: 0.5; Hours per week classroom: 1.5; Hours per week discussion: 0
This seminar probes the most fundamental questions about the good society: “What are the most fundamental rights of humanity? “What impact does national government have on the trajectory of nations? “What is the Social Contract - Rule of Law, and what impact does it have on civilizations?
After taking this seminar, students should have a deeper understanding of constitutional law and the concept of nations, whose leaders are expected to be servants of the people. This seminar also expands on the discussion of ethics, from corporate social responsibility to ethical issues in public office. Students will develop their skills in writing analytical and reflective papers.
SOAN 311 Leadership Seminar 3
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 1.5; Ashesi Credit Units: 0.5; Hours per week classroom: 1.5; Hours per week discussion: 0
This seminar asks the questions: “What is the best way to organize the economic activity of a good society? “What is the proper definition of ‘best’ in the issue? “How do we best achieve a balance of liberty, efficiency, equality and community? This seminar is a natural progression from the previous discussion about Rights and The Rule of Law.
At the end of this seminar students should have a better understanding of the interplay between natural and civil rights on the one hand, and economic activity on the other. They will gain skills in analytical and reflective writing.
SOAN 411 Leadership Seminar 4
Required for all BA, MIS & CS, ENG Majors
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semestr 1, 2
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 0
This seminar is a capstone to the Leadership Seminar series and puts into practice many of the general concepts discussed in the previous seminars as well as courses taken at Ashesi. Service Learning helps students develop a sense of citizenship by giving them an opportunity to become engaged with their surrounding community, while also considering how they can make a positive impact on improving that community or solving its problems. The Leadership as Service Seminar is designed to extend this series beyond the classroom, get students engaged in the larger Ghanaian community, help them experience the impact that they can have in society, and thus develop a confidence that we hope will stay with them through their professional lives.
The course aims to: help you carve out your personal identity as a leader and to find yourself in this equation: personal integrity + desire for social change + relevant skills + creative problem-solving + courage = an Ashesi Leader; to help you understand servant leadership and enhance your ability to lead by example; to help you understand your role as a contributor to problem-solving and positive social change in your community; and to expose you to a variety of leaders, inspire, encourage and support you to be a great servant leader.
Africana/African Studies Elective Courses
ENGL 215 African Literature
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
African Literature, as a broad conceptual category, covers a broad array of discourses flung across the continent’s various sub-cultures and its multiple language heritages. Given that wide and far-reaching background, we shall set ourselves a modest and researchable goal for the semester: we shall imagine the course as a survey course meant to offer a formal introduction to African literature in its broadest historical and cultural contexts. We shall interrogate some popular debates within African literary discourse (colonialism and cultural imperialism; the possibility of an “African” literature in non-African but Europhone languages; cultural nationalism and the independent nation-state; and gender, sexuality and African cultural traditions) and also invoke the peculiar historical, socio-cultural and cultural contexts that inform our selected texts.
ENGL 231 African Literature & Film (Women Writing Africa: Female Writers in Modern African Literatures and Films)
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 1/2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course is premised on a central question: How have African women’s voices and images been shaped, heard, and/or represented in postcolonial Africa? The course seeks to enable students to understand ways in which contemporary African culture is being reconstructed through the restoration of women’s voices in the public sphere by African women writers and film makers. Particular attention is paid to the feminine point of view in ways that challenge the representation of women and their experiences in male-authored literatures and films in postcolonial Anglophone and Francophone Africa. Students read and critique several works by African female writers, watch films and documentaries by both female and male writers/producers, and explore changes in concepts such as “woman,” “wife,” and “mother” from contemporary African perspectives under the general rubric of “African Feminism”. But in this course we pay attention to Chinua Achebe’s perspective on the role of literature/artist in postcolonial Africa. On the charge that the African literary artist was too earnest, too political, Achebe argued that for the African artist, “art for art’s sake is just another deodorized dogshit” (1964; 1973:8). There will also be a serious analysis of indigenous African proverbs as they pertain to the female-male discourse.
In this course we approach feminism in modern African literatures in line with Alice Walker’s coined word, “womanism”. Walker delineates this discourse in terms of complimentary relationships between women and men. The concept also draws a distinction between Western “bourgeois” feminism which is primarily satisfied with political changes that for the most part affected only the elite and did not affect their class privilege. The course thus essentially lifts up Walker’s line of thought evident in the writings of modern African women such as Chicwenye Ogunyemi. She has opined that, instead of denigrating (Black) manhood, womanism rather recognizes its collaborative potential, believes in him, and empowers him. Womanist writings would, therefore, almost always end in `integrative images of male and female worlds.’ Participants in the course will be led to assess Ogunyemi’s perspective that, “A Black woman writer is likely to be a `womanist’. That is, she will recognize that along with her consciousness of sexual issues, she must incorporate racial, cultural, national, economic and political considerations in her philosophy” (1985:64). Discussion of gender relations in modern African women’s writings is therefore understood as:
- A specific response to indigenous and colonial (Islamic and Western) patriarchies.
- An articulation of African women’s concerns through a medium—modern African literatures—originally dominated by men.
- Located within the broader social and cultural contexts of African societies and shaped by political and economic interests.
- Discrimination that African women experience and their strategies for coping with it.
POLS 221 African Philosophical Thought
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
A serious thinking through or reflection on the practical/tangible aspects of the human experience is the goal of philosophy. This course is an introduction to a variety of themes of philosophical thinking in Africa. The approach adopted to advance the goals of the course, differs from traditional philosophy courses in a significant way. Specifically, we will read about the works of African philosophers; apply/interrogate such thoughts in such works to grounded cultural practices in actual and mediated lives; and think through and dialogue with fellow colleagues on the readings in this class. Thus, needless to say, throughout the course we will use concrete examples to ground readings which may sometimes be abstract. The goal of this grounded approach is to demonstrate the relevance of philosophical thinking in contemporary times and also to negate the idea that ‘philosophy’ does not ‘touch ground’ (that is, it is only intellectual exercise) and is thus only a ‘thinking’ (and boring) subject.
POLS 231 Africa in International Settings: Africa Beyond Aid
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 1/2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
Across the African continent many want to do away with decades of aid dependency striving instead for a more assertive Africa on the international scene. This course encourages informed debate and a varied assessment of what overseas development assistance has evolved into over the years and how can it be complemented and replaced by more effective and relevant resources. It will offer a variety of case studies from individual African countries as well as identifying regional trends and characteristics.
The course aims to locate the topical ‘Beyond Aid’ debate in a theoretical, historical and regional perspective. It offers an introduction to main tenets of development theory and provides an overview of how international norms guiding development policy have evolved from the first development decade of the 1960s to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015.
Furthermore, the course assesses the changing role of development assistance in the context of African economic and social development and will compare contemporary data on the role of aid relative to trade, remittances and foreign direct investments. It will look at challenges confronting African countries aiming to offer a more diverse and varied understanding of development options and constraints relative to the often-stereotyped perceptions of ‘one size fits all’ presumably meant to apply across 54 very different nations on the continent. And it will look at how access to financial resources influence the position of African governments in shaping current geopolitical alliances.
POLS 332 Governance in Africa
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
What are the big ideas, essential questions, disciplinary ways of thinking, and/or approaches to problem solving that students will engage with in the course? Why are they relevant?
In social theory as well as public policy the concept of ‘governance’ is often associated with normative prefixes: good governance, effective governance, sound governance etc. Likewise, governance may often be perceived as acts performed primarily by governments.
This course will aim to unpack governance from the ‘embrace’ of being a government prerogative and rather consider governance as institutional processes involving multiple actors inside and outside of government who endeavor to arrive at effective rules of the game for authoritative decision-making.
Rather than promoting a normative scheme, the course will suggest that governance must be considered as decisively shaped by the country and societal context. It offers a pragmatic approach to what can be considered ‘best fit’ given the circumstances rather than ideal notions of ‘best practice’.
Such an approach offers analytical tools and enhanced awareness of how existing governance arrangements affect available opportunities and by what means institutional frameworks can be adjusted and made more responsive to needs of citizens, enterprises, and the wider society. The course offers a balance between global and international ideas and theories on governance on the one hand and on the other hand specific case studies from the African region, thereby aiming to verify and qualify generic statements on the nature of politics in Africa.
SOAN 220 Embodied African Aesthetics Foundations
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture, Experiential
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
It entails various aspects of African culture including music, dance, language, religion, cosmology and symbolism. Usually, teaching this course in the summer makes use of both ontological and epistemological approaches with loads of photos, videos and practical demonstrations.
SOAN 225 Ghanaian Popular Culture
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This Ghanaian Popular Culture course is an undergraduate, 300-level, African Studies elective at Ashesi University. The course uses creative and engaging content in Ghanaian Popular Culture (for instance, video movies, vehicle inscriptions, political cartoons) as a channel for teaching disciplinary analytical thinking and reasoning skills to focus on academic writing, and to indirectly prepare students for capstone projects.
SOAN 233 African Music and the Contemporary Art Music Scene
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Typically offered in Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture, Experiential
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course explores the role of music and dance as essential components of life within African traditions. It introduces students to the basic elements of African life as connected to music and dance. It will extend to include some aspects of contemporary African music and dance. The course exposes students to the connection between music and dance and their role as repositories of African indigenous knowledge, values and virtues. Students will be given skills to conceptually and practically explore the socio-historical and cultural contexts of the African life through examination of specific music and dance types. It will be delivered through lectures, workshops, practical observations and demonstrations.
SOAN 322: African Cultural Institutions
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
Contemporary African societies reflect the interplay of tradition and change. The institutions of the past have not simply given way to the newer ones of the present. It is an interplay among what Ali A. Mazrui called a “Triple Heritage” of Indigenous Africa, Islamic Africa, and Euro-Christian/Western Africa. Kwame Nkrumah identified the same dynamic and described it as “Consciencism”—how these three influences on contemporary African life and institutions generate a “crisis of conscience”. Thus, African cultural institutions and practices continue to give direction to the internal and external changes that are taking place in Africa and in the Americas today. This course examines the social, political, economic and religious institutions embodying patterns of culture that have evolved over thousands of years and represent Africa’s contribution to global civilisation. The course enables students to see Africa in a global perspective and provides a framework for scholarly reflection. We approach this course from socio-anthropological perspectives and identify culture as:
- A lived experience developed over time with contours and detours based on geography, history and environment,
- African cultures as different yet similar to all other cultures
The course focuses on three interrelated themes: (a) Cultural processes and institutions that existed just prior to the “arrival” of Europeans, (b) the raptures to these cultural processes and institutions—caused especially by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its subsequent colonial phase, and (c) the legacies of these ruptures during the postcolonial era to the present. Of particular concern will be the effect on processes of development and democratisation. The integration and/or influences of African cultural institutions with other parts of the world, and the centrality of “Africa” in the world receive attention.
SOAN 227 Religion in Africa
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course is an introduction to a cross-cultural study of religions and cultures of Africa through the disciplines of anthropology, history, and sociology of religion. The goal of the course is to teach students to think critically about the traditional religious heritage of Africa as a profound reflection on the human condition. This goal is achieved through a systematic study of the attitudes of mind, beliefs, as well as practices which have evolved in the many African societies such as the Akan of Ghana, Yoruba and Ibo of Nigeria, Malinke of Guinea, the Ewe/Fon of Dahomey/Benin, the Luo of Tanzania, K(G)ikuyu and Masai of Kenya, the Zulu of Southern Africa, and the Mende of Sierra Leone. Through the viewing of documentary films, movies, lectures, and discussions, the meaning, structure, nature, and world views of contemporary Africans are closely examined.
In addition, the course offers an overview of how cultural and religious knowledge is generated, understood, and used as Africans in general and Sub-Saharan Africans in particular, draw on their music and dance, myths, art forms and symbols to articulate and elaborate on the cosmos, life, sickness, health, and death, as they organize their lives. It does so by retrieving and analyzing the significance of creation myths, religious personalities such as rulers, diviners, and healers, in relation to the role of the ancestors.
Finally, it reflects on the social, cultural and historical factors which have engendered religious changes in Africa. Particularly it unpacks the problematic emergence of two world religions, Christianity and Islam—“Guest Religions”—and their encounters with the indigenous religions of Africa. Attention is paid to the impact is the “host” on the “guest” religions. In the end, it is hoped that students are enabled to interpret, articulate and synthesise religious knowledge, experience, and reflection as they deal with African ideas, belief systems and practices.
SOAN 301 Introduction to Africana Studies: The Global Black Experience
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 1 & 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
Introduction to Africana Studies surveys the sum-total of the content of Black peoples’ lives historically and in the present. The course raises and attempts to answer some key questions: What is the nature and historical contours of the Global Black Experience? How have our understandings and appreciations of this experience changed over time? What is “Africa” to (a) Continental Africans? (b) Caribbean/South American Africans? (c) North American Africans and (d) Indian (Asia) Africans—such as the Sidi of Mumbai? The term “Africana” therefore encapsulates the “wide community” of Africa. It offers an openly conceptual framework to attract new and emerging ways of understanding the global Black experience.
The course therefore explores the interconnectedness of Black subject identities, experiences, issues, themes, as well as topics, and applies them dynamically to diverse locations of the Black world. Specifically, it sheds light on the global approach to the African Diaspora, showing how globalism underscores the distinctive role that Africa and African people have played in their contributions to world affairs. It seeks to demonstrate how Africana people have reclaimed their own “story”, noting that “until lions have their own historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”
Thus, the methodology of this course uses a paradigm which identifies the multiple levels of Black reality over time. The basic facts and perspectives of the course come from the synthesis of three main sources: Africana intellectual tradition, the traditional academic disciplines (particularly the humanities and social sciences), and the Black Studies Movement. The course is also concerned with the development of academic skills. Through lectures, discussions, documentary and feature films, students are guided to learn how to read and interpret the scholarly output of the field of Africana Studies, master key concepts, definitions and terminologies. In addition, students learn to express their understandings and reactions to the subject matter both verbally (oral presentations) and in writing in the mode associated with the discipline of Africana Studies.
SOAN 235 Embodied African Aesthetic Foundations: West African Traditional and Contemporary Dance Praxis
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course will be a mix of movement labs and lecture conversations. Even through Zoom, movement concepts and aesthetics are translated, explored and deepened in our bodies. We practice dance strengthening and conditioning to prepare our bodies for West African Dance techniques. Innovative collaboration between student research projects is created in the course. Research projects are interdisciplinary, integrating student' Majors, Minors, and/or specific inquiries as they interconnect with African aesthetic foundations, principles, and the embodied knowledge of West African Traditional and Contemporary dance and culture. Everyone is welcome. All abilities have taken this course over the years and find research extending into West African Dance to be eye opening, meaningful, and a space for new knowledge production as well as deep identity exploration.
POLS 322 China-Africa Relations
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The period from the 1990s has witnessed rapidly bourgeoning Sino-Africa ties, even though ties between them are not new. This is an interdisciplinary course intended to study the historical, economic, cultural, military, and political relations between the People’s Republic of China and independent Africa. Employing a miscellany of primary source documents and secondary sources, the course will explore these interactions between China and Africa. We shall be particularly interested in a number of pertinent questions, including, does present-day Chinese engagement in Africa amount to a “new scramble for Africa” or “neo-imperialism”? Is China a hegemonic power in Africa? What are the implications of the “Beijing Consensus”, and how has China’s embrace of market reform in the 1980s changed her economic and ideological ties with Africa? This course also investigates the nascent role of Chinese companies and businesses in a fast-developing Africa. The goal is to augment students’ comprehension of the dynamics of China-Africa relations in a progressively globalized world.
POLS 234 Comparative Politics: Politics in Africa
Can be taken as an Elective
Prerequisite(s): Written and Oral Communication
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course is designed to study theoretically and empirically contemporary Politics of Africa. It is a study of African states and their domestic politics, laying emphasis on state-society interactions, governance, governing ideologies, forms of social (ethnic) and political pluralism, monopolization of political and economic power, popular resistance to power, connections, disruptions, and fractures from global politics, chronic underdevelopment and political repression of citizens, the rise of active polities, and the uses and abuses of cultural ties amid dynamism and pervasive violence. In fine, we shall interrogate the processes, institutions, ambiguities, antinomies and contradictions of African politics. The course also involves a study of the many theoretical and epistemological approaches developed to address the issues of African politics.
French Elective Courses
FRENC 111 Introductory French 1
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The economic development being experienced by Ghana and the geographical location of the country (surrounded by francophone countries), its trade relations with its neighboring francophone countries, makes both the French language a fundamental means of communication in Ghana, especially in business and at all levels of business transactions. To be competent and competitive in the region, companies have understood that to be able to communicate, both in French and English is a plus, and that there is therefore a need to have bilingually trained staff.
In response to this need, Ashesi University has decided to offer its students, training in French, which will enable them to become « independent users » of French which means that they can easily survive in a francophone environment. The objective is to bring them to attain a level B1 or B2 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 & C2. For each level, it describes what a learner should be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing. We want our students who are taking the Introduction to French 1 class to get to meet the requirements of level A1.
FRENC 122 Professional French 1
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): None
Offered: Semester 1
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The economic development being experienced by Ghana and the geographical location of the country (surrounded by francophone countries), its trade relations with its neighboring francophone countries, makes both the French language a fundamental means of communication in Ghana, especially in business and at all levels of business transactions. To be competent and competitive in the region, companies have understood that to be able to communicate both in French and English is a plus, and that there is therefore a need to have bilingually trained staff.
In response to this need, Ashesi University has decided to offer its students, training in French, which will enable them to become « independent users » of French which means that they can easily survive in a francophone environment. The objective is to bring them to attain a level B1 or B2 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 & C2. For each level, it describes what a learner should be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing. We want our students who are taking the Professional French 2 class to get to meet the requirements of level B1.
FRENC 123 Introductory French 2
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Introductory French 1
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The economic development being experienced by Ghana and the geographical location of the country (surrounded by francophone countries), its trade relations with its neighboring francophone countries, makes both the French language a fundamental means of communication in Ghana, especially in business and at all levels of business transactions. To be competent and competitive in the region, companies have understood that to be able to communicate, both in French and English is a plus, and that there is therefore a need to have bilingually trained staff.
In response to this need, Ashesi University has decided to offer its students, training in French, which will enable them to become « independent users » of French which means that they can easily survive in a francophone environment. The objective is to bring them to attain a level B1 or B2 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 & C2. For each level, it describes what a learner should be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing. We want our students who are taking the Intermediate French 2 class to go towards the requirements of level B1.
FRENC 214 Professional French 2
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Professional French 1
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
The economic development being experienced by Ghana and the geographical location of the country (surrounded by francophone countries), its trade relations with its neighbouring francophone countries, makes both the French language a fundamental means of communication in Ghana, especially in business and at all levels of business transactions. To be competent and competitive in the region, companies have understood that to be able to communicate both in French and English is a plus, and that there is therefore a need to have bilingually trained staff.
In response to this need, Ashesi University has decided to offer its students, training in French, which will enable them to become « independent users » of French which means that they can easily survive in a francophone environment. The objective is to bring them to attain a level B1 or B2 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
The Common European Framework divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 & C2. For each level, it describes what a learner should be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing. We want our students who are taking the Professional French 2 class to get to meet the requirements of level B1.
FRENC 315 Francophone Literature, Films and Creative Writing
Non-major elective
Prerequisite(s): Professional French 2 or a DELF B1 or a test in French. (Francophones are allowed to take this course)
Offered: Semester 2
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 4; Ashesi Credit Units: 1; Hours per week classroom: 3; Hours per week discussion: 1
This course introduces students to African literature written in French with emphasis on the work of major authors from West Africa and other authors parts of the Negritude movement. The study of diverse literary genres (Tales, epic, novel, short story, poetry, essay) will be supported by insights into the respective geographical, historical, linguistic, and societal context such as the triangular trade, the colonial era in Africa and the Negritude (Movement) School and its impact on African Literature.
In this course students will read and analyze books and books’ extracts, watch and debate about films and documentaries for the period starting in 1940’s and going up to the present. Through all those documents students will also learn about the Francophonie, the African francophone culture. Creative writing and writing with constrains will help students to improve their general and academic writing in French.
The course is an “Africana course” and will allow them to become more confident of their communication skills in French whether it is reading, writing, understanding or speaking.
This course is taught in French and is open for francophone students and/ or students who are advanced users of French (at least a B1 level).