Download or read book Boxing is no Cakewalk written by NYM Botchway and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boxing is no cakewalk! Azumah Ring Professor Nelson in the Social History of Ghanaian Boxing explores the social history of boxing in Ghana and its interesting nexus with the biography of Azumah Nelson, unquestionably Ghanas most celebrated boxer. The book posits that sports constitute more than mere games that people play. They are endowed with enormous political, cultural, economic and social power that can influence peoples lives in various ways. Boxing is no cakewalk! interrogates the social meaning and impact of boxing within the colonial and postcolonial milieux of popular culture in Ghana. Consequently, it reconsiders the prevailing conception of boxing as adversative to enlightened human culture by arguing that it is a positive formulator of individual and national identities. The historicising of sports and the lives of sportspersons in Ghana provides an eloquent backdrop for an understanding of the past social dynamics and their effect in the present. The books analytical narrative offers an intellectual contribution to the promising areas of social and cultural history in Ghanas historiography and the scholarly discourse on identity formation and social empowerment through the popular culture of sports.

Download or read book West African Soldiers in Britain s Colonial Army 1860 1960 written by Timothy Stapleton and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "West African Soldiers in Britain's Colonial Army, 1860-1960 explores the history of Britain's West African colonial army based in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia placing it within a broader social context and emphasizing, as far as possible, the experience of the ordinary soldier. The aim is not to describe the many battles and campaigns fought by this force but to look at the development of the West African colonial army as an institution over the course of about a century. In pursuing this goal, it is sometimes useful to employ the lens of military culture defined differently by scholars but essentially meaning a set of shared ideas and behaviors that inform daily life in the military. While other locally recruited colonial militaries in Africa have attracted considerable attention from historians as they served as an essential pillar supporting European rule, this book represents the first comprehensive scholarly study of Britain's West African army which was the largest such British-led force south of the Sahara. The study is based on extensive archival research conducted in nine archives located in five countries"--

Download or read book Born to Box written by Alex Daley and published by eBook Partnership. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born to Box is the story of Nipper Pat Daly, arguably boxing's greatest ever prodigy. A pro at age ten, by 14 he was beating grown men and at 16 ranked in the world's top ten. But tragically he was overworked and forced to retire by 17. Told by the author and by Nipper himself via his previously unpublished memoirs, it is a story like no other.

Download or read book Gender Sexuality and Decolonization in Postcolonial Ghana written by Charles Prempeh and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2023-01-19 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the turn of the millennium, in Ghana and in other African countries, there has been a vociferous debate over the history and present condition of the family. The debate has largely fragmented the Ghanaian constituency into two nearly intransigent camps: those who think the indigenous family system should experience cultural osmosis to accommodate the seismic Western cultural revolutions and the overwhelming religious constituency who advocate the retention of conservative family system. This book is a contribution to the debate. Written by an African Studies academic, it seeks to use the resources of both the social sciences and religion to assess the merits of the various parties to the debate. The author believes in the legitimacy of the traditional family system as conditio sine qua non for preserving human civilization. Nevertheless, the goal of this book is not to further polarize the Ghanaian front, but build bridges, by inviting the various parties to the debate to walk the complex pathways of exercising compassion without compromising the values that support human flourishing. Charles Prempeh is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Cultural and African Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana.

Download or read book The Political Impact of African Military Leaders written by Sabella Ogbobode Abidde and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-28 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume examines the cases of four African military leaders who had enormous impact on the continent and beyond. These military officers, and later heads of state -- Jerry Rawlings of Ghana; Moammar Gaddafi of Libya; Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso; and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt – were provocative and polarizing figures, beloved domestically but mostly viewed with suspicion and hostility by foreign governments. This volume studies these leaders as a group, engaging in a critical but systematic examination of their personalities, leadership styles, official performance, legacies, and their continuing impact on the future and political destiny of the continent. Providing a survey of controversial but important African political figures, this volume will be of use to scholars and students in the social sciences, especially those interested in African history, African studies, military science, Black studies, political science, leadership studies, and the politics of developing nations.

Download or read book Hollywood and Africa written by Opio Dokotum and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2020-02-05 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood and Africa - recycling the Dark Continent myth from 19082020 is a study of over a century of stereotypical Hollywood film productions about Africa. It argues that the myth of the Dark Continent continues to influence Western cultural productions about Africa as a cognitive-based system of knowledge, especially in history, literature and film. Hollywood and Africa identifies the colonial mastertext of the Dark Continent mythos by providing a historiographic genealogy and context for the terms development and consolidation. An array of literary and paraliterary film adaptation theories are employed to analyse the deep genetic strands of HollywoodAfrica film adaptations. The mutations of the Dark Continent mythos across time and space are then tracked through the classical, neoclassical and new wave HollywoodAfrica phases in order to illustrate how Hollywood productions about Africa recycle, revise, reframe, reinforce, transpose, interrogate and even critique these tropes of Darkest Africa while sustaining the colonial mastertext and rising cyberactivism against Hollywoods whitewashing of African history.

Download or read book African Personhood and Applied Ethics written by Motsamai Molefe and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, the salient idea of personhood in the tradition of African philosophy has been objected to on various grounds. Two such objections stand out the book deals with a lot more. The first criticism is that the idea of personhood is patriarchal insofar as it elevates the status of men and marginalises women in society. The second criticism observes that the idea of personhood is characterised by speciesism. The essence of these concerns is that personhood fails to embody a robust moral-political view. African Personhood and Applied Ethics offers a philosophical explication of the ethics of personhood to give reasons why we should take it seriously as an African moral perspective that can contribute to global moral-political issues. The book points to the two facets that constitute the ethics of personhood an account of (1) moral perfection and (2) dignity. It then draws on the under-explored view of dignity qua the capacity for sympathy inherent in the moral idea of personhood to offer a unified account of selected themes in applied ethics, specifically women, animal and development.

Download or read book Beyond the Political Spider written by Kwesi Yankah and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities by Kwesi Yankah is the first title in the newly established African Humanities Association (AHA) publication series. By integrating his own biography into a critique of the global politics of knowledge production, Yankah, through a collection of essays, interrogates critical issues confronting the Humanities that spawn intellectual hegemonies and muffle African voices. Using the example of Ghana, he brings under scrutiny, amongst others, endemic issues of academic freedom, gender inequities, the unequal global academic order, and linguistic imperialism in language policies in governance. In the face of these challenges, the author deftly navigates the complex terrain of indigenous knowledge and language in the context of democratic politics, demonstrating that agency can be liberatory when emphasising indigenous knowledge, especially expressed through the idiom of local languages and symbols, including Ananse, the protean spider, folk hero in Ghana and most parts of the pan-African world.

Download or read book Yabbing and Wording written by Izuu Nwankwọ and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yabbing and Wording: The artistry of Nigerian stand-up comedy is a long-overdue academic interrogation of the novel stand-up practice in Nigeria as performance. 'Yabbing' comes from the Nigerian Pidgin English verb, 'yab', which means a satirical jibe thrown at individuals, groups or institutions. Nigeria's Fela Anikulapo-Kuti used this effectively in his recorded and live music performances against successive military regimes. 'Wording' derives from the English term 'word' and refers to a game in which parties exchange insults. It is a modern-day coinage for traditional forms of joking that existed across Nigeria and elsewhere in precolonial times. In this book, Nwankw? identifies 'yabbing' and 'wording' as outstanding indigenous elements within contemporary stand-up practice in Nigeria. On the one hand, these local joking patterns inform how comedians fashion their narratives. On the other, they mitigate offence and how the audience responds to ridicule in joke performance venues. The book's strength is its academic perspective and the inclusion of as many examples of stand-up and comedians as possible, to give a panoramic view of the practice. It also traces the historical path of the development of professional stand-up comedy in Nigeria. Its closing chapters detail the global outreach of Nigerian stand-up while also anticipating its future developments.

Download or read book Women visibility and morality in Kenyan popular media written by Ligaga, Dina and published by NISC (Pty) Ltd. This book was released on 2020-02-16 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women, visibility and morality in Kenyan popular media explores familiar constructions of femininity to assess ways in which it circulates in discourse, both stereotypically and otherwise. It assesses the meanings of such discourses and their articulations in various public platforms in Kenya. The book draws together theoretical questions on ‘pre-convened’ scripts that contain or condition how women can circulate in public. The book asks questions about particular interpretations of women’s bodies that are considered transgressive or unruly and why these bodies become significant symbolic sites for the generation of knowledge on morality and sexuality. The book also poses questions about genre and representations of femininity. The assertion made is that for knowledges of femininity to circulate effectively, they must be melodramatic, spectacular and scandalous. Ultimately, the book asks how such a theorisation of popular modes of representation enable a better understanding of the connections between gender, sexuality and violence in Kenya.

Download or read book Global Perspectives on Boarding Schools in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries written by Daniel Gerster and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thousands of pupils attended boarding schools in various places across the globe. Their experiences were vastly different, yet they all had in common that they were separated from their families and childhood friends for a period of time in order to sleep, eat, learn and move within the limited spatial sites of the boarding school. This book frames these ‘boarding schools’ as a global and transcultural phenomenon that is part of larger political and social developments of European imperialism, the Cold War, and independence movements. Drawing together case studies from colonial South Africa, colonial India, Dutch Indonesia, early twentieth-century Nigeria, Fascist Spain, Ghana, Nazi Germany, nineteenth-century Ireland, North America and the Soviet Union, this edited collection examines the ways in which boarding schools extracted pupils from their original social background in order to train, mold and shape them so that they could fit into the perceived position in broader society. The book makes the broader argument that framing boarding schools as a global phenomenon is imperative for a deepened understanding of the global and transnational networks that linked people as well as ideas and practices of education and childhood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture written by Grace A Musila and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-05-15 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook brings together an international team of scholars from different disciplines to reflect on African popular cultural imaginaries. These imaginaries – in the sense of cultural productions, contexts, consumers, producers, platforms, and the material, affective and discursive resources they circulate – are influential in shaping African realities. Collectively, the chapters assembled in this handbook index the genres, methods, mediums, questions and encounters that preoccupy producers, consumers and scholars of African popular cultural forms across a range of geohistorical and temporal contexts. Drawing on forms such as newspaper columns, televised English Premier League football, speculative arts, romance fiction, comedy, cinema, music and digital genres, the contributors explore the possibilities and ambiguities unleashed by the production, circulation, consumption, remediation and critique of these forms. Among the questions explored across these essays are the freedoms and constraints of popular genres; the forms of self-making, pleasure and harm that these imaginaries enable; the negotiations of multiple moral regimes in everyday life; and, inevitably, the fecund terrain of contradictions definitive of many popular forms, which variously enable and undermine world-making. An authoritative scholarly resource on popular culture in Africa, this handbook is an essential read for students and scholars of African culture, society and media.

Download or read book A Boxing Trainer s Journey written by Jonathan Brown and published by Barbera Foundation. This book was released on with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To train the greatest, he had to be the greatest. On the streets of South Philly, Angelo Dundee learned what it took to survive—a sense of purpose, a clear head, and sometimes . . . a powerful right uppercut. Boxing was the family business and the ring was his home. A skilled trainer and cut man, Dundee intuitively adapted to whatever his fighter needed, be it doctor, therapist, drillmaster, or friend. With gauze and liniment or a well-timed joke, Dundee knew how to keep his guy in the fight and instill confidence in the bleakest of final rounds. For the boxing legends of our time, including Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, there was no one else they wanted in their corner.

Download or read book Gridiron Greats written by Ashley Jude Collie and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2002-12-15 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles eight outstanding NFL players who had to overcome obstacles on their way to fame and success.

Download or read book Slings and Arrows written by John Davies and published by Paragon Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life and Times of 'Johnny One Punch' DaviesAfter enjoying an idyllic life on a hillside farm in South Wales until he was five, John Davies' life changed dramatically when his ten year old sister Heather suffered a fatal accident and the farm was sold and the family moved away. Brutalised by his father and bullied at school, he became afraid of 'his own shadow' until his uncle gave him a punch ball for his ninth birthday and discovered he had a rare talent. Unfortunately he abused it and spent over eight years in prison because of his extreme violence, before being sent to a psychiatric prison at the age of 45. Missing the opportunity to become a world champion, he became one of Wales' finest boxing coaches and trained his son to become a world-class fighter.Married for the fourth time at 65 to a girl half his age, he beat angina and fathered a son at 68. Arrested for growing millions of pounds worth of cannabis at 69, he has written his life story to leave a record for his son in case he is incarcerated.

Download or read book I Only Smoke on Thursdays written by Georgie Nickell and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I have the ability to act interested in something a guy is saying when I'm really thinking about how cute my new boots are." Meet the girl who could be you - if your perfectly planned life fell apart on Valentine's Day. Comfortably situated in her twenties, she is happy and sure of her future; until the day a waitress at some Mexican restaurant changes this smoker's life from absolute certainty to absolute insanity. In this Ab Fab meets Bridget Jones adventure, follow our heroine through three years of good dates, bad moods and friends who always want to go dancing on Thursdays. This say-anything book is full of two-week relationships, way too many cigarettes, and the birth of her split personality, Glamourina. Take a voyeuristic look into the mind of a girl who plans her life through daydreams and lip-gloss, while discovering the meaning of life at the bottom of a vodka tonic. This could be the story of your life, if yours were as funny, tragic and fabulous as hers. "Don't read this book on the bus. People will think you're a laughing lunatic!"-Richard Reid, Northwest Cable News

Download or read book Satie the Bohemian written by Steven Moore Whiting and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1999-02-18 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erik Satie (1866-1925) came of age in the bohemian subculture of Montmartre, with its artists' cabarets and cafés-concerts. Yet apologists have all too often downplayed this background as potentially harmful to the reputation of a composer whom they regarded as the progenitor of modern French music. Whiting argues, on the contrary, that Satie's two decades in and around Montmartre decisively shaped his aesthetic priorities and compositional strategies. He gives the fullest account to date of Satie's professional activities as a popular musician, and of how he transferred the parodic techniques and musical idioms of cabaret entertainment to works for concert hall. From the esoteric Gymnopédies to the bizarre suites of the 1910s and avant-garde ballets of the 1920s (not to mention music journalism and playwriting), Satie's output may be daunting in its sheer diversity and heterodoxy; but his radical transvaluation of received artistic values makes far better sense once placed in the fascinating context of bohemian Montmartre.