Nana Osei-Opare
My dissertation, “The Red Star State: State-Capitalism, Socialism, and Black 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.
Fields of Study
Africa
Research
Publications
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
“Uneasy Comrades: Postcolonial Statecraft, Race, and Citizenship, Ghana-Soviet Relations, 1957-1966,” Journal of West African History (accepted for publication).
Resubmitted under Revise and Resubmit: “‘If You Trouble a Hungry Snake’: Worker Dissent and Letter Writing in Postcolonial Ghana, 1957-1966,” Journal of African History.
“Terrorism and Racism, Twin Sisters?,” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, Volume 39, Issue 1, January 2016, pp. 33-40.
“Communism and the Tutelage of African Agency: Revisiting Mandela’s Communist Ties,” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 2014, pp. 69-90.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Book Review, Steven Friedman, Race, Class, and Power: Harold Wolpe and the Radical Critique of Apartheid in African Studies Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 3-4. January 2017, pp. 193-195.
Book Review, Barry Gilder, Songs & Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance in Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 2014, pp 289-291.
“‘Mahama-OO!’ President John Mahama’s Woes,” The African Collective, August 25, 2014
“Securing Ghanaian Economic and Energy Independence and Prosperity,” The African Collective, June 19, 2014
“African Agency: Nelson Mandela and the South African Communist Party,” The African Collective, June 18, 2014
“Term-Limits for Winners and Losers: Constitutional Democracy & Republicanism,” The African Collective, April 21, 2014
Book Review, Carmela Garritano, African Video Movies and Global Desires: A Ghanaian History in African Studies Quarterly, Volume 14, Issue 3, March 2014, pp. 128-129.
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
A.B. with Honors, History, Stanford University, 2011; M.A., History, Stanford University, 2011; C. Phil., UCLA, 2016