Prof. Sadhana Naithani,
President
The International Society for Folk Narrative Research is pleased to announce the start of a new lecture series entitled The ISFNR Lecture Series: Voices from Around the Globe, which will be open to not only our global network of international folk narrative scholars but also the general public. The lectures will take place online at 5 pm UTC, on the third Friday of every alternate month, beginning April 15, 2022, each of them coordinated by a member of the Executive Committee of the Society. The plan is for the Vice Presidents of the ISFNR to invite particular members of the Society (and other scholars to present their research in any language in which they wish to speak (bearing in mind the need to communicate to an international audience). The papers not presented in English will be made available in English translation.
On behalf of the ISFNR, I would like to invite you all to join us in this exploration of various cultural phenomena, local and global, old and contemporary, and stable and changeable. Folk narrative scholars continue to record, map and communicate how people are navigating their cultural practices and values through turbulent and peaceful times and through the palimpsestic layers of history which have witnessed the rhizomatic growth of narratives. Indeed, in our own time, it is relevant to ask whether folk narrative still has the means to grasp the truth of a post-truth world.
Details and a schedule of lectures will be announced shortly. Links for the lectures will be emailed to all members of the ISFNR and shared on the Society’s website and the Facebook Page. For more information, contact: nisfnr@gmail.com
Next lecture
Kwesi Yankah
Ghana’s Presidents and the Rhetoric of Heritage
19 April, 2024., at 5 p.m. CEST
Speaker’s Biography:
Kwesi Yankah is a Ghanaian scholar in ethnography of communication, and a product of University of Ghana and Indiana University (USA). An academic, administrator, and author of several books, Yankah has been Vice-Chancellor of Central University, Ghana; and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Ghana. He was between 2017 and 2021 Ghana’s Minister of State for tertiary education. Yankah is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Honorary Fellow, American Folklore Society
Abstract:
The paper puts in a broad context the general exploitation of ethno-poetic resources by Ghana’s presidents to drive public policy and boost political charisma. Here icons of group identity derived from heritage are prioritized as quintessential, since they also celebrate a leader’s affinity with the masses. This has been optimally expressed in moments of stress where public sympathy is needed to drive policy or cope with a raging crisis. From the time of Ghana’s independence to date, Ghana’s leaders have actively deployed heritage to legitimize power and effectively convey policy positions. This was climaxed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the President set the pace depicting policy responses to the crisis through proverb icons in fabric wear. Ghana’s leader saw in the tragedy an opportunity to reinvent tradition, and wipe the nation’s tears through proverb lore.
The entire exercise is seen as a collective appeal to tradition to cope with contemporary crises, and as well demonstrate the healing power of heritage.