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Nana Osei-Opare



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Email    oseiopare@ucla.edu
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Nana Osei-Opare is a Ph.D. Candidate in UCLA’s Department of History, focusing on twentieth-century African history. His tentative dissertation title is “‘The Black Bolsheviks:’ Kwame Nkrumah’s Economic and Political Thought and the Ghanaian Revolution, 1957-1966.”  His research interests include the first socialist African revolution, the coherency of Nkrumah’s political and economic ideas, and Ghana’s economic and state-building methods in relation to the Soviet Union’s New Economic Policy. While his work is primarily Ghana-centric, it explores how the intellectual processes and formulations in the United States, Britain, Caribbean, Soviet Union, and other African nations shaped and intersected in Ghana.

 

He has lived in Ghana, South Africa (pre-and-post apartheid), New Jersey, Canada, & California. He has also traveled widely.  

Nana Osei-Opare is a Ph.D. Candidate in UCLA’s Department of History, focusing on twentieth-century African history. His tentative dissertation title is “‘The Black Bolsheviks:’ Kwame Nkrumah’s Economic and Political Thought and the Ghanaian Revolution, 1957-1966.”  His research interests include the first socialist African revolution, the coherency of Nkrumah’s political and economic ideas, and Ghana’s economic and state-building methods in relation to the Soviet Union’s New Economic Policy. While his work is primarily Ghana-centric, it explores how the intellectual processes and formulations in the United States, Britain, Caribbean, Soviet Union, and other African nations shaped and intersected in Ghana.

 

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Fields of Study

Intellectual African History, Nkrumahism, CPP, Ghanaian State, State Capitalism, Modernization, Labor, Soviet Union, Intellectual Networks, South Africa

Research

His research interests include the first socialist African revolution, the coherency of Kwame Nkrumah’s political and economic ideas, and Ghana’s economic and state-building methods in relation to the Soviet Union’s New Economic Policy. While his work is primarily Ghana-centric, it explores how the intellectual processes and formulations in the United States, Britain, Caribbean, Soviet Union, and other African nations shaped and intersected in Ghana.

Publications

Osei-Opare, Nana. (2016). Terrorism and Racism, Twin Sisters?. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 39(1). international_asc_ufahamu_29822. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t96h7hf

Osei-Opare, Nana. (2014). Barry Gilder, Songs & Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 38(1). international_asc_ufahamu_25033. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ph2s97j

Book Review, Carmela Garritano, African Video Movies and Global Desires: A Ghanaian History, African Studies Quarterly, Volume 14, pp. 128-129 (2014)        

Grants and Awards

  • The UCLA International Institute Dissertation Fieldwork Fellowship, 2016, (UCLA)
  • Laura Kinsey Prize, 2015, (UCLA)
  • Charles E. and Sue K.  Young Award, 2015, (UCLA)
  • Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, 2014 & 2015, (UCLA) 
  • Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship - Russian, 2014, (UCLA)
  • Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California Office of the President, 2013-2017, (UCLA)
  • Stanford University African Studies Leadership Award, 2013, (Stanford University)

Conference Presentations

  •  “The Emergence of NEP [New Economic Policy] Ideology in Ghana: A Case Study of the Ghana Cocoa Processing Company,” Department of African Studies, University of Vienna, African Thoughts on (Neo-) Colonial Worlds: Steps towards an Intellectual History of Africa, Vienna, Austria, November, 6, 2014.
  • “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, Panel III-6, Moscow, Russia, May 29, 2014.
  • “Re-defining & Re-Understanding the Theoretical Underpinnings the Theoretical Underpinnings of the Black Communist Network,” UCLA International Graduate Conference, Transnational Ideological Flows, Los Angeles, U.S.A., May 15, 2014.

Advisors

Professor Andrew Apter

Degrees

M.A., History, Stanford University, 2011; A.B. with Honors, History, Stanford University, 2011