In May 2024, Indiana University launched the IU Ghana Gateway in the capital city of Accra. Nine months later, Distinguished Professor and Academic Director of the IU Ghana Gateway Samuel Obeng took the lectern at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences to deliver the Academy’s J.B. Danquah Memorial Lecture Series.
The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) is both the oldest academy of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa and the home of Indiana University’s Ghana Gateway.
Established in 1968, the lecture series continues the academic and social contributions of its namesake, the “dean of Ghanian nationalist politics” and formative member of Ghana’s independence movement, J.B. Danquah. A key figure of the social and political scene, Danquah was the first West African to obtain a Ph.D. from a British university, and used his rhetorical, philosophical, and legal skills to successfully make the case for a self-governed Ghana. While he lived to see Ghana become a sovereign nation, his speech fell afoul of the young government’s leader and Danquah died in prison for what have broadly been called empty charges.
A scholar of linguistics and recent inductee into the GAAS, Professor Samuel Obeng was honored to be selected as this year’s lecturer. “I come from humble backgrounds—none of my parents went to school,” he said. “For me to be invited to deliver those lectures, knowing the strict rules that the Distinguished Lectures Committee imposed… for me it meant a lot,” Reflecting on the support he’s received that made his success possible, he continued, “And not just that: we were inaugurating a gateway in Africa! It brought together that kind of chiasmus, the interlacing, of IU, IU Global, the Ghana Academy, the broader Ghanaian community, Africa, and my own personal professional journey.”
Drawing from the current international political moment, the judicial and rhetorical legacy of Danquah, and his own decades of expertise, Obeng’s series of three lectures centered on Language and Liberty in Ghanaian Political and Judicial Discourses. “What I looked at is ‘how is language used in resisting the validity claims, the pronouncements, even executive orders by political actors?’” Obeng said, breaking down nearly six hours of lectures into a few sentences. “In the Ghanaian context what I talked about is the linguistic and rhetorical features that political actors use, and how we use language to resist that chaos and those assertions.”
Through memos, legal documents, and trials, Obeng walked the audience through the ways in which language goes beyond describing the world: it can define it. Obeng outlined the techniques used by Danquah to successfully challenge Britain’s right to rule the nation—and the tools used against Danquah towards the end of his life.
While intellectually stimulating, the experience of returning to his home country to share his own expertise while examining the words of his forebearers was deeply personal. “It dawned on me,” Obeng said, “We’re here because this man fought for liberty and died fighting for it… it was not only a teachable moment; it touched my spirit.”
The excitement of the lecture series is only shadowed by Obeng’s excitement about the future of the IU Ghana Gateway. In its first year of operation, it has hired its first in-country staff, taken the first steps towards opening Ghana’s first Human Milk Bank, with much more to come. Teams of IU interior design students have begun to see their contributions in action as the physical space of the Gateway hosted its first event. Collaborations between universities across Ghana and the broader West Africa are in initial discussions, including research on aging, cybersecurity, and social work.
“You know the gateway has taken off!” Obeng reflected. “We’ve moved from sitting down to, you know now taking off, and it will require more work. We will hit some blocks, but my father used to say that if life was just a smooth journey, then everybody would travel easily.” While the path for the IU Ghana Gateway may not always be smooth, Obeng showcases the passion, academic excellence, and determination that propels the Ghana Gateway forward into its second year of operation.
