University of Ghana holds conference on arts

The University of Ghana is holding a two-day conference of arts at the RS Amegashie Auditorium at the Business School.

The programme which spans 3rd May, 2017 to 4th May, 2017 is aimed at providing a synergy for inter-disciplinary teaching and learning of the arts and making arts more purposeful.

In his address, the Provost of Humanities at the University of Ghana, Prof. Samuel Agyei Mensah emphasized the need to embrace the arts and cultivate the right attitudes towards arts education.

Speaking on the topic “History & Biography beyond Modernity, the Keynote Speaker for the first day of the conference, Prof. Ciraj Rassool from the University of Western Cape, South Africa, touched on how make biography research interesting.

“We can discover how the story itself was made. We need to approach Biography through the idea of production of history. Production will take into consideration the source – primary source and secondary source. So I defer to the modernist way of dealing with Biography; that’s seeking the narrative and seek the source,” he told citifmonline.com.

Ciraj Rassool directs UWC’s African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies, managed in partnership with Robben Island Museum. He is a trustee and of the District Six Museum and the South African History Archive. He is also a councillor of Iziko Museums of Cape Town and previously served on the councils of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and the National Heritage Council. He has been a member of the Archaeology, Palaeontology, Meteorites, Heritage Objects and Burial Sites Permit Committee of SAHRA, and also serves on its Artworks Advisory Panel.

Most recently he was appointed to the Human Remains Repatriation Advisory Committee of the Department of Arts and Culture.

He has written widely on public history, visual history and resistance historiography and has published in the Journal of African History, the Journal of Southern African Studies, Cahiers d’etudes Africaines, African Studies, South African Review of Sociology and Kronos: Southern African Histories.

Also present at the conference was the Ammamre Cultural Troupe which enthralled participants with the beautiful performances.