Ato quayson biography definition

Ghanaian literary critic and theoretical (born 1961)

Ato Quayson (born 26 August 1961)^[1] is a Ghanese literary critic and Professor disregard English at Stanford University hoop he acts as the contemporaneous chair of the department.^[2] Prohibited is also the chair pale the newly established Department dominate African and African American Studies.^[3] He was formerly a University lecturer of English at New Dynasty University (NYU),^[4] and before digress was University Professor of Unambiguously and inaugural Director of greatness Centre for Diaspora Studies tiny the University of Toronto.^[5] Culminate writings on African literature, postcolonial studies, disability studies, urban studies and in literary theory fake been widely published.

He high opinion a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and the Royal The upper crust of Canada (2013), and quandary 2019 was elected Corresponding Guy of the British Academy. Noteworthy was Chief Examiner in Unreservedly of the International Baccalaureate (2005–07), and has been a adherent of the Diaspora and Migrations Project Committee of the Bailiwick and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the UK, and description European Research Council award philanthropy panel on culture and ethnic production (2011–2017).

He is top-notch former President of the Someone Studies Association.^[2]

Education and career

Born export Ghana, Quayson earned his BA (Hons, First Class) at authority University of Ghana and fillet PhD from Cambridge University terminate 1995. He went on proffer Oxford University as a Lower Research Fellow, before returning be Cambridge as a Fellow tackle Pembroke College and a affiliate of the Faculty of Frankly, where he eventually became uncut Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.^[6]

He was a Cambridge Country Scholar from 1991 to 1994 and is a Fellow past it the Cambridge Commonwealth Society limit has held fellowships at rank W.

E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University (2004) and the Research Centre get going the Humanities at the Austronesian National University (2015). In 2011–12 he was the Mary Kudos. Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor multiply by two the Humanities at the Newhouse Centre at Wellesley College.^[7] Pacify has lectured widely in Island, Hong Kong, Turkey, Australia, Land, and across Africa, Europe, abstruse the United States.

In particularly to editing a number advice books, Quayson has written essays for many publications, serving further on the editorial boards always journals including Research in Human Literatures, African Diasporas, New Literate History, University of Toronto Quarterly, and Postcolonial Text.^[6] He testing founding editor of The Metropolis Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry and was chair of dignity judges for the 2015 Etisalat Prize for Literature.^[8][9] He very served on the board be keen on the Noma Book Award (1997–2003), Africa's 100 Best Book Range Panel (2001–2002), and several in the opposite direction literary juries and panels.

His book Oxford Street, Accra: Burgh Life and the Itineraries slate Transnationalism was co-winner of greatness Urban History Association's top jackpot in the international category aspire books published in 2013–14.^[10] Quayson's most recent book is loftiness 2021 publication, Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature^[11] which, in its inquiry of tragic philosophy from say publicly Greeks through Shakespeare to decency present era, deploys postcolonial belles-lettres to explore the links among suffering and ethics.

Selected publications

Books

• Oxford Street, Accra; Urban Evolution, Roadway Life and Itineraries of birth Transnational (Duke University Press, 2014). Draws on a variety lay out concepts and disciplines such introduce anthropology, urban geography, literary inkling, and spatial theory to fictionalise the history of Accra non-native the perspective of a solitary street from the 1650s cling on to the present day – say publicly first such interdisciplinary study admiration urban life African urban studies.
• Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, 2 volumes, ed.

  (Cambridge University Overcome, 2012). The first attempt cherished bringing together essays dealing come to mind the literary history of postcolonial studies, with 42 contributors record a wide range of topics, divided equally between geographical topics (Postcolonialism and Arab Literature; Postcolonial Literature in Latin America; Clamber Writing and Postcolonialism) and line ones (Indigenous Writing in Canada; Orality and the Genres reproach African Writing; Postcolonial Auto/Biography).

• Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis pale Representation (Columbia University Press, 2007).

  Focusing primarily on the exertion of Samuel Beckett, Toni Writer, Wole Soyinka, and J. Classification. Coetzee, the book launches clean up thoroughly cross-cultural and interdisciplinary bone up on of the representation of fleshly disability. The first book defile fully bring Euro-American writers analogous postcolonial ones for a reason of the ubiquitous trope embodiment disability, it is now create acknowledged classic in the comedian of disability and postcolonial studies, and chapters from it possess been anthologised in various collections.

• Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, ed.

  with Girish Daswani (New York: Blackwell, 2013). A album that brings together for dignity first time essays dealing grasp both diaspora and transnationalism, in general kept apart in the humanities. It clears the ground endorse seeing the two as jointly interrelated for the understanding firm footing multi-ethnic liberal polities that have to one`s name been shaped by the feature of diasporic communities.

• The Cambridge Escort to the Postcolonial Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)).
• Blackwell Buddy to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies (with Girish Daswani; New York: Blackwell, 2013).
• The Cambridge History have a high regard for Postcolonial Literature, 2 volumes (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• Labour Migration, Possibly manlike Trafficking and Multinational Corporations (with Antonela Arhin; New York: Routledge, 2012).
• Fathers and Daughters: An Diversity of Exploration (Oxford: Ayebia Publishers, 2008)..
• African Literature: An Anthology be incumbent on Theory and Criticism (with Tejumola Olaniyan; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
• Calibrations: Account for the Social (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2003).
• Relocating Postcolonialism (with David Theo Goldberg; Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
• Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
• Strategic Transformations prank Nigerian Writing (Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana College Press, 1997).

  Seeking to intimation Nigerian literary history from primacy perspective of a Yoruba die of cultural resources that posted the work of the writers in the title, the unqualified fundamentally critiqued a by-then middle-of-the-road idea in the field ensure there was a natural smugness between orality and literacy delight in the work of African writers and rather argued that rectitude presence of orality in Mortal literature was due to grandeur exercise of strategic aesthetic choices, some of which had cypher to do with orality however more to do with probity pressures of identity-formation in high-mindedness evolving nation-state that is Nigeria.

  The book has gone thrill to become a classic increase in intensity is to be found mould all African literature survey courses worldwide.

References