ASP is pleased to announce that Nana Abena Amoah-Ramey, Ph.D. will be joining the IU African Studies Program this fall in a faculty lecture position shared with IU’s African American & African Diaspora Studies Department (AAADS). Dr. Amoah-Ramey currently serves as Coordinator of Student Services for the Hutton Honors College’s Culture and Health Study Abroad Program, from which IU sends Study Abroad students to Ghana every other year. She also serves as a Commissioner on the City of Bloomington's Commission on Women's Status (BCSW).
In the upcoming fall semester, Dr. Amoah-Ramey will be teaching Early Black American Writing and Contemporary Black American Intensive Writing courses for the AAADS department and Elementary Akan/Twi for the African Studies Program. In future semesters, Dr. Amoah-Ramey will teach innovative new courses on Africa-focused topics for ASP students, including courses focused on gender, on music, and on globalization.
From 2008 to 2010, Dr. Amoah Ramey taught Akan/Twi to the School of International Training (SIT) Study Abroad students from the United States and Europe at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. At Indiana University, she has taught intermediate and advanced Akan/Twi to campus students of the African Studies Program from 2013 to 2015. In addition, the broad experience has allowed her to teach Akan/Twi to OVPDEMA Study Abroad Students, who have been visiting Ghana from the summer of 2011 through 2018. And, very recently, Dr. Amoah-Ramey has also taught students at the Hutton Honors College's Culture and Health Study Abroad Program of Indiana University, who visited Ghana in the Summer of 2019.
In 2016, Dr. Amoah-Ramey earned her Ph.D. degree from the flagship Bloomington Campus of Indiana University in African American & African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) with a minor in African Studies and a focus in Ethnomusicology. Her undergraduate and M.Phil degrees in Ethnomusicology are from Ghana’s premier university, the University of Ghana. She received part of her graduate education from the Hanover’s Music and Theater University in Germany.
Dr. Amoah-Ramey’s research lies in African American & African Diaspora Literature as well as African Popular music and cultures, Ethnomusicology, Gender Roles and Representations, Globalization and Internationalization, African Language Pedagogy and Research (Akan/Twi).
Dr. Amoah-Ramey’s first book, titled “Female Highlife Performers in Ghana: Expression, Resistance, and Advocacy, is published by Lexington Books. It is an expert account of the history and innovative challenges and progress, which have led to increased contributions of female performers in Ghana’s Highlife musical tradition. She is also the author of several review essays in refereed Journals. Her current research and publishable projects are based on a comparative study of the similarities, continuities, and differences between popular female musicians in Africa, the American black diaspora, and selected geo-cultural international locations.
Dr. Amoah-Ramey is a fellow of the Transformative Learning Collegium at the Center for Teaching and Learning Services, and a Study Abroad Award recipient of the Hutton Honors College for Faculty training for Study Abroad training funded by the U. S. Department of State’s Capacity Building Program, all received in 2019 from Indiana University.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Amoah-Ramey this fall!