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Nana Osei-Opare



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Email    oseiopare@ucla.edu
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My dissertation, “The Red Star State: State-Capitalism, Socialism, and Internationalism in Ghana, 1957-1966,” provides a new theoretical framework to understand the post-colonial African state’s political-economy. It explores the Soviet connection in shaping Ghana’s post-colonial economic agenda, its Pan-African political imaginations, and its ideas of citizenship against the backdrop of a global white racial and economic hierarchy. It is also a history of how ordinary Africans—the working poor and informal sector—grappled with state-capitalism, the functions of state-corporations, and the economic and political spaces they opened and closed to the national body politic. The dissertation draws on two years of English and Russian archival research in multiple sites in Ghana, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  

 

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Fields of Study

Intellectual African History, Black Radical Tradition, Ghanaian State, State Capitalism, Modernization, Soviet Union, Intellectual Networks, South Africa

Research

My dissertation, “The Red Star State: State-Capitalism, Socialism, and Internationalism in Ghana, 1957-1966,” provides a new theoretical framework to understand the post-colonial African state’s political-economy. It explores the Soviet connection in shaping Ghana’s post-colonial economic agenda, its Pan-African political imaginations, and its ideas of citizenship against the backdrop of a global white racial and economic hierarchy. It is also a history of how ordinary Africans—the working poor and informal sector—grappled with state-capitalism, the functions of state-corporations, and the economic and political spaces they opened and closed to the national body politic. The dissertation draws on two years of English and Russian archival research in multiple sites in Ghana, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Publications

  •  Book Review, Steven Friedman, Race, Class, and Power: Harold Wolpe and the Radical Critique of Apartheid, African   Studies Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 3-4, pp. 193-195 (January 2017).
  • “Terrorism and Racism, Twin Sisters?”  Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, Volume 39, Issue 1, January 2016.
  • “Communism and the Tutelage of African Agency: Revisiting Mandela’s Communist Ties,” Ufahamu: A Journal of African       Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 2014
  •  Book Review, Barry Gilder, Songs & Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance, Ufahamu: A Journal of African     Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 2014
  •  Book Review, Carmela Garritano, African Video Movies and Global Desires: A Ghanaian History, African   Studies Quarterly, Volume 14, Issue 3. pp. 128-129 (2014)       
  • “The Glorious Divorce,” Stanford Journal of African Studies (SAUTI), Volume 5, 2008. 

Grants and Awards

2017-2018        Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award (Russia)

2017-2018        Silas Palmer Fellowship, Stanford University Hoover Institution Library & Archives

2016                 Department of History Travel Stipend, UCLA

2016                 International Institute Dissertation Fieldwork Fellowship, UCLA

2015                 Laura Kinsey Prize for Teaching Excellence, UCLA

2015                 Charles E. & Sue K. Young Award for Distinguished Academics, Teaching, & Service, UCLA

2014 & 2015    Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA

2014                 Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (Russian)

2013-2017        Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California Office of the President, UCLA

2013                 African Studies Leadership Award, Stanford University

2011                  James Birdsall Weter Prize, Stanford University

2011                  Certificate of Excellence & Outstanding Performance and Lasting Contribution to the Stanford

                          African Students Association, Stanford University

2010                 Snell & Wilmer LLP Diversity Scholarship Recipient

2010                 Undergraduate & Research Major Grant Recipient, Stanford University

2010                 Best Black Voluntary Student Organization Award, Stanford University

2008-2011        Dean's Award, Stanford University

2007                 John Richard McDonough Memorial Award for Humanities, Saint Benedict’s Prep

Conference Presentations

  • Chair/Panelist, “A Diplomatic Rendezvous: Ghanaian and Soviet Relations, 1957-1966,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC, U.S.A., January 4-7, 2018.
  • Chair/Panelist, “A Diplomatic Rendezvous: Ghanaian and Soviet Relations, 1957-1966,” the African Studies Association 60th Annual Meeting, Chicago, U.S.A., November 15-19, 2017.
  • Panelist, “Socialist Help: Ghana and Soviet Technical & Scientific Exchanges (1957–1966),” Spaces of Interaction between the Socialist Camp and the Global South Knowledge Production, Trade, and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in the Cold War Era, University of Leipzig, Germany, October 27, 2017.
  • Panelist, “Ghana-Soviet Paradigms, 1957-1966,” Africa and the Soviet Union: Technology, Ideology, and Culture Workshop, New York University, October 13, 2017.
  • Panelist, Forum to Reclaim Diversity - Affirming Activist Scholarship: A Multi-Journal Collaboration, UCLA, Los Angeles, U.S.A., April 23, 2015.
  • Presenter, “The Emergence of NEP Ideology in Ghana: A Case Study of the Ghana Cocoa Processing Company,” Department of African Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, November 6, 2014.
  • Presenter, “Reviewing Nkrumah’s Ideological Attainment of Socialism: The Emergence of NEP Ideology in Ghana,” Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for African Studies 13th International Conference, Moscow, Russia, May 29, 2014.
  • Presenter, “Re-defining & Re-Understanding the Theoretical Underpinnings of the Black Communist Network,” UCLA International Graduate Conference, Los Angeles, U.S.A., May 15, 2014.

Advisors

Professors Andrew Apter (Chair), Robin D.G. Kelley, Stephan Miescher, and William H. Worger.

Degrees

M.A., History, Stanford University, 2011; A.B. with Honors, History, Stanford University, 2011; C. Phil., UCLA, 2016