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About Me

I am an Associate Professor of History at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where I teach courses in African History, Digital History, and History Communications. I am the author of Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation (Indiana University Press, 2016), which was a finalist for the Herskovits Prize. My research explores the histories and cultures of mobility and urban life in Ghana. I am currently working on a history of “making” and DIY urbanism in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. I also seek to apply my historical scholarship to present debates in popular culture and policy. I maintain my own blog (www.ghanaonthego.com) and contribute to the website “Africa is a Country” where I write on a wide range of issues, from episodes of The Crown to the Trump administration’s Africa policy. I also write regularly about urban planning practice and Bus Rapid Transit policies. I serve on the editorial advisory board for the series “Politics and Development in African Cities” for Zed Books.

I helped create a curricular model for the emerging field of History Communications, and I am active in the field of digital humanities. I administer my own project (Accra Wala – an interactive, digital map of Accra based on the local public transit system called trotros), and I serve on the advisory board for “Curating East Africa”, a digital project out of Cleveland State University. I also coordinate Network Detroit, a regional conference on digital humanities.

Recent Publications

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

Ghana

Expertise by Geography

Africa

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Capitalism, Colonialism, Economic History, Public History