NYU Wordpress Theme

Exploring Local Culture to Inform a Career

Posted on May 13, 2024, modified on May 13, 2024 by Maxine P

Julia Antwi-Boasiako

For College of Arts and Science student Julia Antwi-Boasiako, the opportunity to study at NYU Accra was a chance to revisit Ghana, the country where she was raised, and explore new possibilities for her future. The senior, who is majoring in Global Public Health and Sociology and minoring in Chemistry, immersed herself in local culture and professional experiences through impactful courses and an intensive internship.

To learn more about the history of Ghana from the 15th century through the rise of slavery in the Americas, Julia signed up for the class The Black Atlantic. Students explored a range of genres, including film, fiction, and formal scholarship, to examine how African communities were shaped during this time. She also took City As Text, which focused on Ghana’s modern society. In this course, Julia had the chance to tour two different areas within Accra, an affluent neighborhood and an impoverished one. She drew on the city as a primary resource for academic research and critical inquiry, completing formal interviews with locals to help her construct her final project.

“I have always dreamed of installing health resources back in Ghana. City As Text gave me an understanding of the needs of the population and resources that can help improve their circumstances,” Julia says. “I hope to further my education in the health and medical field in order to accomplish this objective, and these courses have given me a boost in my motivation.”

A small group of people standing in front of Black Star Gate in Accra

Black Star Gate in Accra, a photo from Julia’s time there

It took Julia some time to adjust to the culture of the city—though she spent a large portion of her childhood in Ghana, she’s lived in the United States since she was 12. At first, there were times when it was difficult for her to understand the locals’ perspectives. “Despite all this, the culture in Accra was amazing,” Julia remembers. “The locals are very amiable, funny, and always eager to strike a conversation and get to know you. I made many friends with local shop employees and even security personnel.”

In addition to classes and exploring, Julia also interned for the African Social Research Lab, working with the Eban Centre for Human Trafficking Studies. The internship was more research-intensive than she initially expected, but that wasn’t a problem. In fact, it made her realize how much she enjoys doing research, helping her understand her ideal future work environment.

“I wanted to be involved with a human services organization, and the internship made me aware of wanting to be in a field that was more hands-on and interactive,” Julia says. “Being able to listen to the stories of others and try to understand their backgrounds and perspectives was something I really enjoyed doing.”

Repurposed with permission from the NYU Wasserman Center for Career Development’s blog

Global Programs Booklist

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Katie L

Inspired by the first NYU Bookstore display collaboration between the Office of Marketing Communications and the Office of Global Programs, this list of books representing NYU’s global locations promises to broaden your perspective and enrich your knowledge.

NYU Abu Dhabi

Temporary People
By Deepak Unnikrishnan

The skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are recognizable around the world by their resplendent glittering towers—but how did they get there? Deepak Unnikrishnan, an Indian-born writer raised in the United Arab Emirates and associate arts professor of literature and creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi, knows the answer: a foreign labor force was brought in to construct them. Using a series of clever and surreal linked stories, Unnikrishnan gives voice to a humanitarian crisis that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

NYU Accra

The Hundred Wells of Salaga
By Ayesha Harruna Attah

Based on a true story, The Hundred Wells of Salaga tells the tale of two women from very different backgrounds whose lives converge in an unexpected way. It’s a novel that will entangle you emotionally, while offering you crucial insight into precolonial Ghana, particularly the slave trade and its impact on a people.

NYU Berlin

No Photos on the Dance Floor! Berlin 1989–Today
Edited by Heiko Hoffmann and Felix Hoffmann

History books offer what we think is a full story, but this photography book provides a peek into the city’s after-hours culture through the club scene that blossomed in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s not only a delightful visual romp but also a history book in its own right, telling the story of a city in transformation, one party at a time.

NYU Buenos Aires

The Aleph and Other Stories
By Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges might seem like an obvious choice for Argentina—for a country that produced so many famous writers, he is arguably the most famous. Still, who can deny this selection? The brilliant, inventive tales of The Aleph and Other Stories will surprise and stimulate, and they are must-reads for diving into Argentine culture. Borges, after all, makes magic happen in the most unexpected ways.

NYU Florence

The Monster of Florence book cover featuring a close-up image of Giambologna's The Rape of the Sabine sculpture

The Monster of Florence: A True Story
By Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

The Monster of Florence has developed a bit of a cult following in recent years, and for good reason—it’s a wild ride. American Douglas Preston moved to Florence with his family and quickly discovered that their olive grove was the site of one of Italy’s most infamous double murders. As he works with investigative journalist Mario Spezi, a Florentine, to get closer to the truth, things really begin to spiral. The Monster of Florence is a propulsive thriller that offers valuable, and often shocking, insight into the Italian justice system.

NYU London

White Teeth
By Zadie Smith

White Teeth is a rare novel that is entertaining while simultaneously layered with so much richness, one might want to read it all over again as soon as it’s over. Starting with two unlikely friends whose stories blossom into a poignant yet funny family saga, Zadie Smith’s debut novel keenly witnesses the immigrant experience in London, traveling to other continents as well while navigating the relationship between tradition and change.

NYU Los Angeles

Slow Days, Fast Company book cover featuring a distorted image of a woman

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.
By Eve Babitz

This slim book offers stories as wild and wanton as Los Angeles itself. Unapologetically hedonistic, Slow Days, Fast Company is also a clever, windy ride through the Los Angeles of the 1960s and 1970s. It has all the usual Angeleno archetypes, but Eve Babitz elevates them with her incisive and acerbic insights into life in Hollywood. Isn’t it funny that, decades later, so much has changed but so much remains the same?

NYU Madrid

Ghosts of Spain book cover featuring images of Spain

Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Silent Past
By Giles Tremlett

Worth a read to understand a post-Franco Spain, Ghosts of Spain is a well-rounded, curious, and admittedly fun romp through the country, albeit prompted by the author’s questions about its devastating civil war. British author Giles Tremlett combines keen cultural reporting with memoir and quirky sidebars that add levity to what begins as a serious interrogation. While it’s intellectually critical, it’s also a love letter to Spain. After all, there’s a reason Spain is Tremlett’s adopted country.

NYU Paris

The Years book cover featuring an image of a woman looking at the viewer with the silhouette of a person looking down a hallway

The Years
By Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux’s whole oeuvre is masterful, but many critics cite The Years, first published in 2008, as her magnum opus. In this brilliant collage of a memoir, Nobel Prize winner Ernaux examines her life and the generation that she grew up in, favoring “we” over “I.” The result is a personal history tied to the collective experience of a generation in France during the 20th century. Ernaux weaves her memories into a story that offers cultural notes on topics from consumerism and immigration to unemployment and the threat of nuclear war.

NYU Prague

Havel: A Life book cover featuring an image of Václev Havel with his hand atop his head

Havel: A Life
By Michael Žantovský

In many ways, Václav Havel’s life mirrors the zeitgeist of Prague: it’s political, literary, antiauthoritarian, surreal, and somehow, even at its most serious moments, darkly humorous. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because Havel, like the city itself, was a complex figure. Michael Žantovský was a trusted friend, so this biography reads as an intimate and true portrait (faults and all) of a man loyal to his people, his values, and his art. Žantovský succeeds in showing the many dimensions of the iconoclast—playwright, political dissident, prisoner, president—who, in the end, was just as human as the rest of us.

NYU Shanghai

Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade
By Anna Greenspan

This brilliant book contextualizes China’s largest and most cosmopolitan city through the lens of modernity. Author Anna Greenspan, an associate professor of contemporary global media at NYU Shanghai, reexamines the changing landscape of the city as it steps well into the 21st century and takes its place on the world stage.

NYU Sydney

Mirror Sydney: An Atlas of Reflections
By Vanessa Berry

A fun and unexpected romp, Mirror Sydney takes us on a tour of the harborside city via engaging essays and clever hand-illustrated maps. Based on a blog Vanessa Berry started more than a decade ago, Mirror Sydney is clearly more than a mere guidebook—it’s too much fun to be that typical. Moreover, it tends to direct the reader to the kinds of places the average tourist wouldn’t care to know about or explore anyway.

NYU Tel Aviv

The Bibliomaniacs: Tales from a Tel Aviv Bookseller
By J.C. Halper

On Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, J.C. Halper—originally from New Jersey but now an Israeli for four-plus decades—runs the city’s most popular secondhand bookshop, containing a dazzling 60,000 books. And in 2022 he published this book of clever, often funny short stories from the point of view of a shop owner. While the stories are allegedly fiction, one can’t help but wonder if we’re learning more about real locals than the author lets on.

NYU Washington, DC

Lost in the City
By Edward P. Jones

It’s a joy to read anything by Edward P. Jones, the gifted, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer. His debut collection of short stories, Lost in the City, is no exception and first cemented his literary reputation. These 14 tales tell the everyday encounters and struggles of Black citizens in Washington, DC. But Jones has a gift for making even the most mundane situation meaningful, and his rich, textured stories give weight to life’s most quotidian moments as viewed through the lens of the Black experience in the nation’s capital.

Written by Marti Trgovich

The Global Liberal Studies Course Taught Around the World

Posted on April 1, 2024, modified on April 1, 2024 by Maxine P

A group of students smile at the camera on a city sidewalk

Students in Cecilia Palmeiro’s “City as Text” class in Buenos Aires’ La Boca neighborhood. The class studies its traditional tenements—painted in different colors—in reading the history of Buenos Aires through its architecture. Photo credit: Daniel Espinoza

Global Liberal Studies (GLS) majors have the unique opportunity to take the course City As Text during the fall semester at most locations in NYU’s global network. The course, part of the GLS junior-year learning sequence, selects location-specific texts to immerse students in the setting where they’re living and learning. “Across all City As Text courses, emphasis is placed on the importance of primary sources. Students academically investigate their present geographic setting but also experience its profound intricacies on-site. The classroom work, alongside the field trips, is designed to facilitate the framing and contextualization of the study away experience,” says Philip Kain, the director of academic engagement and experiential learning and a clinical professor at Liberal Studies.

For example, at NYU Buenos Aires, readings and lectures are enhanced with visits from local government officials and activists. And, of course, excursions throughout the city to places like the Palace of the Argentine National Congress, Plaza de Mayo, and La Boca neighborhood, an artists’ haven that many 19th- and 20th-century European immigrants called home, provide further insight for students. “We produce a kind of knowledge that fosters reflection and analysis that exceeds the singularity of Buenos Aires and inspires their approach to other places,” says NYU Buenos Aires course instructor Cecelia Palmeiro, an expert on Argentine and Brazilian literature and gender issues, a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, and the coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies and Policies at the National University of Tres de Febrero.

A group of students stand in front of a street mural featuring Argentinian soccer player Diego Maradona

Students in Cecilia Palmeiro’s “City as Text” in front of a mural of Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona in Buenos Aries’ La Boca neighborhood. Photo credit: Daniel Espinoza.

This fall in Palmeiro’s class, students considered the past and present of Buenos Aires through the lenses of immigration, environmental concerns, art and its role in political protest, and reproductive health. “In order to obtain the critical tools necessary to make sense and produce academic knowledge out of this experience, students read ‘Neoliberal Reform and Landscape Change in Buenos Aires, Argentina’ by David Keeling and the classic ‘The Right to the City’ by David Harvey,” explains Palmeiro.

This approach is not singular to NYU Buenos Aires, however, as students at NYU London traveled to the city’s Brixton district to learn about the area’s musical history and shifting racial makeup. And at NYU Accra, students focused on how migration and religion shaped the Ghanaian capital, visiting places of worship to learn in context.

Architect Cecilia Alvis points to a colorful mural

Architect Cecilia Alvis with “City as Text” students in front of a mural on the Nicolás Avellaneda Bridge. Photo credit: Daniel Espinoza

NYU Paris students studied the potential impacts of the 2024 Summer Olympics, learning about the social and environmental impacts of the upcoming event, and in NYU Berlin, students contextualized their learning with the history and landmarks of the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the Cold War. “City As Text has played a significant role in the GLS curriculum since its inception. Our aim was to create a course centered on active engagement at the study away locations with a global perspective as its foundation,” concludes Kain.

Repurposed from NYU News

In and of the City: A Conversation with NYU Accra Director Chiké Frankie Edozien

Posted on May 2, 2023, modified on May 2, 2023 by Kristin Law

Prior to his time as the site director of NYU Accra, Chiké Frankie Edozien spent 11 years leading the site’s Reporting Africa program. An award-winning journalist and author, Edozien’s work focuses on government, health, and cultural issues in Africa and across the globe. His memoir, Lives of Great Men: Living and Loving as an African Gay Man, an exploration of the lives of contemporary LGBTQ+ men and women on the African continent and in the diaspora, won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography. His work has appeared in Time and the New York Times, among others, and from 1999 to 2008, he worked as a reporter for the New York Post. In 2017 Edozien was awarded NYU’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award for excellence in teaching, community building, social justice advocacy, and leadership.

When Edozien started his tenure as the NYU Accra director in January 2020, the phrase “in and of the city” inspired his approach to leadership. And even through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has continued to build a bridge between the University and local Ghanaian community, creating an atmosphere of immersive learning for students eager to truly become citizens of the world.

Global Dimensions recently interviewed Edozien about his time leading NYU Accra, his initiative to work closer with the local community, and his hopes for the students he works with.

Interviewer and writer: Kelly McHugh-Stewart

Q: You started as director in 2020, I imagine that was an interesting time to begin a new role, and I’m sure there have been obstacles, but could you start by sharing a few highlights from your time as director thus far?

Chiké Frankie Edozien: Of course. There have been several. I think Go Local is one of the things I enjoyed. That was two semesters of working with students who lived in Ghana but were unable to travel to their NYU home campuses due to the pandemic. During that year in particular, we were able to not just deliver education to students but also show them a Ghana they never knew. It was very gratifying to teach people who were born and bred in Ghana and have them tell us, “We didn’t know about any of this!”

It’s also been really wonderful to revamp some of the courses we offer and try to make sure we are giving students the best academic experience. We’ve updated our food, music, and journalism courses. We also took advantage of the fact that the fall season has a lot of cultural festivals and created arts and humanities courses. We’re not divorced from anything that’s happening in Accra; that’s certainly a highlight for me.

Q: Related to that, tell me about the Labone Dialogues series you established.

CFE: Yes, that has been another highlight. One of the things that is very interesting for me is that, even though we might be the smallest global site, we have a lot going on and we offer a lot to our neighbors. I thought about all the wonderful things we have access to, all the wonderful people who come into contact with our students and into our classrooms, and I wanted to find a way to bring the things we do to the public and provide access for people in the community.

In the last three years, we’ve hosted 10 conversations, and we’ve had wonderful scholars, musicians, and artists here. We’re not just about educating our people, we’re about sharing our resources and encouraging local production of knowledge.

Q: That’s amazing. Can you share a little more about what goes into the Labone Dialogues?

CFE: It starts with some kind of student engagement, which is not open to the public, then there’s a master class for the community to come in, listen, and ask questions. But we also have a craft session for select community members who do not normally have a chance to meet these people NYU has access to. They get to come and work on their craft whether it’s a book, theatre project, or music piece. For us, we think of it as a gift to the community for hosting us in their city, and it has been quite gratifying to be able to share the resources we have with them.

Two people seated onstage in front of an audience having a conversation with microphones

Nigerian writer, Leye Adenle (right), in conversation with Kinna Likimani (left) at a Labone Dialogues community event in February of 2023.

Q: What is unique about NYU Accra and why would you encourage students to spend time studying there?

CFE: NYU Accra is at the center of the world, not just physically but also in terms of the changing world. Ghana is not a developed nation; it is a developing nation. And with that comes a lot of challenges but also a lot of opportunities to do very meaningful work. When we place interns in companies, they are not fetching coffee or making photocopies—they are working on projects. Whether it’s trying to find and deliver vaccines to people, auditing corporations, or sourcing portable water resources, our students have access. I teach journalism and know that, even as a professional journalist, it’s difficult to get an audience with the mayor of a town or the statehouse in the United States, but our journalism students have access to government officials and private businesses. They get answers to their questions.

Our students can also meet ordinary people because we don’t have an NYU bubble here. We really are in and of the city. To have an African experience in your undergraduate years is a wonderful thing, but to be able to do it in a place where you have access to everyone, where almost nothing is beyond your grasp—that’s really quite an experience.

Q: What do you hope students take away from their time in Accra?

CFE: I would like them to really take a bite out of the world. We work very hard to ensure that when a student comes to study in Accra, they’re not just coming to study, they’re really coming to spend a semester in the region. We understand ourselves as NYU Accra, but we also understand ourselves as NYU in Ghana, so we spend a good chunk of the semester showing students all the different experiences and different regions. It’s important to us that our students talk about their time here with a sense of authority—not that they just studied in Accra, but they lived in Ghana, they lived in West Africa, and they understand the nuances. And that’s what we want for them: that they can truly be global citizens.

Q: You recently had a short story, “Krifé,” published in the new book Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices. Congrats!

CFE: I think that came out in January, so it’s very new!

Q: What does “krifé” mean and what is the story about?

CFE: “Krifé” is a colloquial way of referring to a certain kind of folk in Ghana who are very much into their religion. So that work is really an observation about class differences in West Africa, an observation of people who make assumptions about others, while understanding that not everything is as it seems. One advantage of being here is, in everything that I do, I can really observe how contemporary West African society is versus what’s been written about it. It is my hope that by the time I’m finished here, I can do more pieces like that.

Q: What book are you currently reading?

CFE: I just got this book called For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings. It’s by the Kenyan writer Troy Onyango and is a collection that has a razor-like focus on different kinds of East Africans—people who are trans, people whose families might be considered different, people who are going through different things—in contemporary society. I’m very much interested in his take on things. I just started it, but I’m hoping it gives me a better understanding of the region on the other side of us.

Q: Finally, what is one book you’d recommend to a student interested in studying in Accra or someone who simply wants to learn more about the area?

CFE: I recommend a book by Ghanaian writer Esther Armah; it’s called Emotional Justice: A Roadmap for Racial Healing. I like her take because she lives in Ghana, but she also lived and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. There has been a lot of turmoil over the last few years, and one of the things that’s very important for us as scholars and people is to not only look at what’s happened but how we can get past it. How do we move forward? She takes a good look at that, not just from an African perspective, but from the perspective of an African who has been an observer and bystander in the Western world.

And with our young people, it’s really up to us as professors and site directors to make these kinds of books and conversations available so that, in their own time, they can think about them and make the world a better place. For us, that’s very important. At this site in West Africa, we are part of the conversation in a way that works toward healing. So I recommend this book to anyone interested in this region because what happens in the United States is not disconnected from what happens here. We may be far away, but we are connected in more ways than it seems.

Opportunities for Immersion: Experiential Learning Across the World

Posted on November 14, 2022, modified on November 14, 2022 by Kristin Law

One of the many benefits of studying abroad is students learning from world-class faculty while also gaining a new perspective on the world around them. The space where learning happens isn’t limited to the classroom, but expanded to a specific site, with courses planned to both inform and immerse.

As they connect their learning to the places where they study and vice versa, students are equipped with the tools to approach knowledge with curiosity, exploration, and context. Here are some recent courses that capitalize on the locations where they take place.

Cultures and Context: The Black Atlantic

At NYU Accra, Professor Kofi Baku teaches this wide-ranging history course to explore the concept of the Black Atlantic as a sociocultural and economic space. The course covers the 15th-century capture of Africans and their arrival in the New World, the rise of slavery and the eventual emancipation in the Americas, and decolonization and the Black struggle for liberation, equality, and Pan-Africanism.

A large group of students in front of a white set of stairs and building

NYU Accra students on a trip to Elmina Castle.

To complement the historical moments covered in the course, Professor Baku organizes field trips to key sites in Ghana. These trips include a tour of the Cape Coast and Elmina Castle, where African captives were held before they were sent to the Americas. They also visit Osu Castle to learn about the legacies of the Danish slave trade on the Gold Coast. And finally, they visit a plantation in Sesemi to learn about the Gold Coast’s development after the abolition of the slave trade. As students visit these sites, they write personal, interdisciplinary reflections based on their experiences.

Culture of the City: Italian Urban Life

At NYU Florence, Professor Davide Lombardo thinks of the city on two levels: historical and theoretical. From ancient times to modernity, students get a historical and spatial overview of the evolution of Florence’s urban environment.

Aurora Russell, a junior double majoring in Psychology and Journalism with a minor in Anthropology comments on the importance of immersion, “We spend the field-based classes completely in the location, whether it’s out in the city, in a museum, or at a church. Immersing yourself in an environment while you’re discussing that place is a really good way to learn about and understand it.”

Students wearing white gloves look through large books

NYU Florence students immerse themselves in the Acton Art Collection.

Shaping an Educational Landscape: Museum Island

At NYU Berlin, Professor Annette Loeseke organizes a thematic exploration of museums in her course, a mixture of classroom discussions and field trips to the cultural institutions on Museumsinsel. Home to Berlin’s complex of five world-famous museums, students explore the role of the museum in modern times covering topics like feminist and LGBTQ+ perspectives on art collections, digital museum tools and the politics of code, and postcolonial museums in diverse societies.

Throughout the semester, the class meets at the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Pergamon Museum and Panorama, Bode-Museum, and Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art (which is not on Museuminsel), to explore the intersection of museums, history, culture, and politics.

A group of people stand in a circle in front of greenery.

Annette Loeske introduces a museum visit to her Museum Island class at NYU Berlin.

Repurposed with permission from Meet NYU.

Staff Spotlight: Marian Ansa-Otu, Programs Manager of Student Services, NYU Accra

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Katie L

Marian Ansa-Otu, Programs Manager of Student Services, NYU Accra

Students traveling to NYU Accra might not always know what to expect when studying abroad in one of the largest cities in Ghana. Once they get there, however, staff members like Marian Ansa-Otu are available to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

For more than a decade, Marian Ansa-Otu, the programs manager of Student Services at NYU Accra, along with her staff, has made students’ experiences her top priority. “We manage and assist with all aspects of student life, including orientation, cultural programming, health and wellness, and community engagement,” says Ansa-Otu. In fact, she says, Student Services at NYU Accra operates with an open-door policy. “Students can call, text, email, or walk into our offices to share their concerns with us and we will go to great lengths to find solutions.” What’s more, each student has two mandatory meetings per semester with Student Services, so they have ample opportunity to discuss their experiences, successes, and challenges, get assistance, and learn about upcoming events.

Student immersion in the Ghanaian culture is another prime directive of Ansa-Otu and her staff. “Our office collaborates with the academic and other support units to plan, develop, and coordinate programs that help ensure successful cultural adjustment into the Ghanaian environment.” To that end, the staff sponsors workshops, lectures, field trips, and special excursions that correlate with traditions like Career Week, Ally Week, and Cultural Diversity Day. “Planning cultural activities that students can actively participate in helps them learn more about their new environment and culture while adjusting at their own rate and level of comfort,” says Ansa-Otu.

Additional benefits Student Services provides include welcome lunches, farewell dinners, city tours, meditation/reflection rooms, and day and overnight trips to tour different parts of the country.

Ansa-Otu says there is myriad proof that Student Services at NYU Accra is having a transformative effect on students. “Sometimes you see students who change significantly from the start of the semester to the end, evolving into more reflective and engaged students,” Ansa-Otu says. “We even had one student say that coming to this center helped her better understand not only herself but also the world. She said that she felt empowered by her education and left feeling like a new, stronger person.”

Content repurposed with permission from NYU Global Notebook

41 Shots

Posted on July 15, 2020, modified on July 20, 2020 by Chelsea Robles

“As the world is getting smaller, it’s a story about people who come to America with an idea of what could be,” said NYU Accra Director Frankie Edozien. “We may be seen by some as people who sell on the street or work in car washes, but beneath all of that there is a long line of Africans who came here as a way to get a higher education — to get that American degree.”

“You do what you need to do,” he went on to explain, “and what you have to do to get into higher education. And then you do what you have to do to stay in. When you see Africans graduating, there is a lot of jubilation. The joy is not just that you’ve gotten this wonderful degree. You’ve had to do so many things, take on so many jobs. The journey that we take to get there may have many twists, turns, and diversions, but as Africans we think it’s a journey worth taking. The end of our dreams are not the jobs that we have at the moment, those are only the beginning. We return home to build up our communities. That was cut short for Amadou.”

The recently released Netflix series, Trial by Media, focuses on six true crime stories and the role of the media in their narratives. The third Episode, 41 Shots, examines the journey of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year old young man who immigrated to the US from Guinea to pursue a college education. Instead, Diallo was tragically shot to death outside of his home by police officers who claimed Diallo drew a weapon when asked to produce his ID. Set within the context of the stop-and-frisk program that emerged under former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, the episode looks at the case from a range of perspectives — including Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou’s mother; police officers and other city officials; and Edozien’s thoughtful narration of his experience as a reporter covering the case.

Working on the case as a reporter “took years of my life,” said Edozien, “from the day Diallo was shot, to the day his family received the settlement from New York City.” While there were many journalists covering the story, Edozien’s work on the case began right from the moment Madam Diallo arrived in New York from Guinea.“I was there when she arrived in the Bronx right after she disembarked from the plane. I remember when she came out, grabbing onto her, looking at her and saying, ‘my name is Frankie, remember me.’ I also remember reading about that moment in her book, My Heart will Cross this Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou. In her book, she talks about how awful the experience was and how a reporter approached her and gave her his name.” That moment of human interaction coupled with “the fact that I was constant, that I was there to tell a story, not to tell a story and move on” said Edozien, led to the development of trust.

Looking back over twenty years later, Edozien explained that seeing the story made available to a wide audience on Netflix “was a joy.” Initially, however, Edozien had no expectation that his contribution to the documentary, as an advisor to the producers, would result in his own appearance in 41 Shots. He was contacted at first because, as a reporter who had covered the case extensively, the producers frequently came across his name during the process of conducting background research for the show.

When Edozien was first contacted by the Netflix series producers about the episode, he was initially hesitant because he did not want to take part in a project that might cause Diallo’s family to relive the painful memories related to his death. However, upon talking with them, he found that the producers “wanted to do this right, to tell the truth, to create an honest portrayal of what led to Amadou’s killing.” He discovered that they wanted to provide a sense of what actually happened and to spark a conversation about the role of the media in a high profile case. Edozien notes that,“in telling viewers about the role of the media, you have to tell the story.”

When meeting with the producers to provide insight about the case, Edozien expected to serve as only an advisor, though he later agreed to appear in the show as a narrator of particular events. He was also committed to ensuring Madam Diallo’s views were included in the documentary. “Even though she had been very public and had spoken a lot about her son, she never had the opportunity to tell her story. My big goal was that one day we were going to do it, and convince Madam Diallo to do it. She is a very private person, and she’s focused on her foundation. But I made a case for why she should sit down with the producers. I knew they would talk to lawyers, and talk to everyone [in New York who had been] involved. But once they got Madam Diallo to speak, I knew this wouldn’t be a one sided thing. I thought ‘my work is done here.’ Ultimately, that was all that I wanted.”

Reflecting on his connection to the case, on a personal level, Edozien noted that he “understood Diallo’s journey, even though the police just saw him as a street peddler.” “If you are any kind of ‘other,’ explained Edozien, “you are judged by the way you look or speak. If you are somebody who is vending on the street, as he was selling hats and gloves, the assumption is that you don’t have any formal education. But that was far from the truth, he was on his way to becoming a student studying computer science. But he was also a black man studying in the vestibule of his house. And he was also a black man confronted by a police man. The gun they thought he was pulling out was actually his wallet and ID — exactly what anyone would pull out to provide to police when being stopped.”

Considering the recent shootings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, among other headlines detailing racial injustices, said Edozien, “it’s sad to see that so many years later a certain type of body provokes fear. You can have a black man simply standing, and this evokes fear.”

“What was great for me,” said Edozien about the release of the documentary, “was that people saw Diallo. The thought that he was there only to sell on the streets is not right. He had a plan — to get a degree and return to Guinea.” In fact, said Edozien, “the last words Diallo said to his mother were, ‘mom, I’m going to college.’ He was going to register, to make her proud one day, and that sentiment stays with Madam Diallo.”

The experience of living through the death of her son became the impetus for creating the Amadou Diallo Foundation. Edozien explained that while her son didn’t make it, Madam Diallo wanted someone else to be able to make it into higher education. “The Diallo family has not stopped in its commitment to tertiary education for people who might otherwise not go.”

“Ultimately,” says Edozien, “this kind of storytelling is in service of educating people. We are still trying to learn to see everybody as just people. We are still trying.”

Adapting the African City

Posted on May 13, 2020, modified on May 14, 2020 by Chelsea Robles

“What students are doing now ⁠— asking the subjects themselves to take part in creating a documentary ⁠— is their contribution to how the genre has been evolving since its inception in the early 1920s,” explains filmmaker Yahaya Alpha Suberu, a lecturer at NYU Accra. Instead of having films take the stance of a passive observer, “documentaries are now engaging the subjects, they are filming their own voices, and the collaborative process has changed between subject and documenter,” says Suberu.

In “Documenting the African City,” a course that has been offered at NYU Accra since its establishment 15 years ago, students learn how to tell stories using the language of film. The class is open to all students, regardless of their discipline — a background in film is not required — and helps students discover more about the city during the process of shooting short pieces, recording sound, and editing their work. “The topics of their documentaries,” said Suberu, “are as varied as NYU’s diversity. Music, religion, race, politics, transportation, education, gender, sexuality, streetism, commerce, health, dance, tradition, the list goes on and on.”

“Usually by mid-semester students have all the basic skills for pre-production, production, and post-production to finish five-minute individual or group projects. By the end of the semester they would have honed their skills and produced a longer documentary which is about ten minutes in duration.” The longer documentaries are screened outdoors in Accra to an audience from NYU Accra and the surrounding community.

My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. Yahaya Alpha Suberu

However, this spring presented a set of unique challenges, as NYU Accra, like the rest of NYU’s campuses and academic centers, was forced to suspend in-person operations due to the COVID-19 virus, and the cohort found themselves in a range of unexpected locations. “Some were in quarantine in their home countries, some at a place that was a ‘stopover’ or a place that was not home,” said Suberu. In response, the entire structure of the course had to be reshaped and the course’s focal point on Accra also had to adapt given that most of the cohort was no longer in Africa.

How exactly did Suberu adapt his instruction for a course that is typically very hands on, particularly in the locational aspect of the documentaries and the use of NYU Accra’s on-site film equipment and editing suite? And how did he support the continuity of a course that requires a high level of focused creativity in the midst of the chaos and stress?

As he adapted how classes were conducted, spent time identifying short-format films that addressed the needs of the syllabus, and worked with students to expand their story themes beyond the city limits of Accra, Suberu found himself spending more time identifying resources and engaging with students online than in-person. “Even though class is over, I’m still doing research and communicating by email — when you end class, you are still on the screen, spending more time there than one usually would in more familiar circumstances. And along with the move from campus to computer, there has been a shift in how we think about time in terms of teaching and student engagement.”

“My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. For instance, one student wanted to interview an individual in Accra, so the subject filmed herself and sent the footage to the student. Another documented the journey of a friend from NYU New York who travelled back home to China, and self-recorded the experience of being in quarantine.”

Interestingly, the class produced films that have taken a timely look at different angles of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Suberu. “One student’s dad works in virology and he was able to tie his dad’s work into a story that was driven by his interest in biological warfare. Along similar lines, another student investigated how her mom is taking care of herself as a front-line medical worker.”

The final projects from the course will be screened online on May 15th to a public audience. Open to 300 participants via Zoom, Suberu says “it will be quite fascinating to see how many viewers tune in from all over the world.”

NYU Accra Launches New Community Engagement Program “Labone Dialogues”

Posted on February 27, 2020, modified on February 24, 2020 by Martha J Bekink

On February 14, NYU Accra launched a new community engagement program, “Labone Dialogues by NYU Accra.” The program is a lecture series that seeks to facilitate intellectual discourse on pertinent issues and celebrate the life and works of renowned personalities.

NYU Accra is based in the Labone district of Accra, inspiring the name for the series. The inaugural event was on the topic “Archives and Local Production of Knowledge: The Kofi Ghanaba Archives.”

Professor Awam Amkpa of NYU spoke about the creation of archives for personalities like the late Ghanaba (Guy Warren of Ghana) who was a world-famous drummer and Afro-Jazz influencer.

At the event, a copy of the Kofi Ghanaba Archives, a collection of the musical legend’s records and other literary materials, was presented to the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana, to be studied.

According to NYU Accra Director Frankie Edozien, the lecture series is designed to engage the local community;“It is a way of engaging issues and people in Ghana, about Ghana and the West African region.”

By sharing the Kofi Ghanaba Archives with the University of Ghana, NYU Accra is hoping to make Ghanaba’s works available to as many as would want to study him. According to Professor Edozien, “we do not want the archive to be limited to NYU” and housing a copy at the university ensures wider access. This is consistent with the theme of the “Labone Dialogues” and of Professor Ampka’s lecture: the importance of taking seriously locally produced knowledge and archiving of the life and works of prominent personalities especially in the literary space.

The next lecture will focus on the life and works of Ghanaian author, Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, over the last eight decades.

The Ghanian Times covered this inaugural event. You can read the article here.

NYU Accra Students Help Rural Communities in the Volta Region

Posted on December 16, 2019, modified on December 6, 2019 by Martha J Bekink

NYU Accra recently collaborated with ADANU, a local NGO with the mission of helping rural communities to own and lead critical development activities that benefit them. Together, NYU Accra and ADANU organized a day build and rural homestay for NYU Accra students in Saviefe Gbedome, a village in the Volta Region.

Students participated in the construction of a three-unit classroom block. Both NYU Accra and the local community provided the materials and labor needed for this project. Activities included fetching water, mixing concrete, and carrying concrete to the construction grounds.

NYU Accra students also had the opportunity to volunteer at the community school the next day. Students took over classes with supervision from the resident teachers to help school children with colouring, word formation, and vocabulary building. The NYU Accra students were divided into three groups to work with the children.

Kindergarten and Lower Primary: This group helped children in Kindergarten and Grades 1-3 with colouring. The children coloured vegetables and fruits. NYU Accra students helped them to cut the printed images and glue them to manila boards. The manila boards were pasted on the classroom walls to act as decorative pieces.
Upper Primary: Students who volunteered in this group were assigned to grades 4-6. They aided local children to complete word puzzles and exercises in word formation.
Junior High School: Students who volunteered in this group taught junior high school children English vocabulary by focusing on word formation and solving word puzzles.

The NYU Accra students had an amazing time helping, making connections, and gaining an understanding of rural life in Ghana.