Ato Quayson (born 26 August 1961) is a Ghanaian literary critic and Professor of English at
Stanford University. He was formerly a Professor of English at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
(NYU), and before that was University Professor of English and inaugural Director of the Centre for Diaspora Studies at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
. His writings on African literature, postcolonial studies, disability studies, urban studies and in literary theory have been widely published. He is a Fellow of the
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) is a learned society for the arts and sciences based in Accra, Ghana. The institution was founded in November 1959 by Kwame Nkrumah with the aim to promote the pursuit, advancement and dissemination ...
(2006) and the
Royal Society of Canada (2013), and in 2019 was elected Corresponding Fellow of the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...
. He was Chief Examiner in English of the
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB D ...
(2005–07), and has been a member of the Diaspora and Migrations Project Committee of the
Arts and Humanities Research Council
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities.
History
The Arts ...
(AHRC) of the UK, and the
European Research Council award grants panel on culture and cultural production (2011–2017). He is a former President of the
African Studies Association
The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North ...
.
Education and career
Born in
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, Quayson earned his BA (Hons, First Class) at the
University of Ghana
The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities.
The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the Br ...
and his PhD from
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
in 1995. He went on to
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
as a Junior Research Fellow, before returning to Cambridge as a Fellow at
Pembroke College and a member of the Faculty of English, where he eventually became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.
["Ato Quayson"]
, Centre for Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto.
He was a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholar from 1991 to 1994 and is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society and has held fellowships at the
W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
(2004) and the Research Centre in the Humanities at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
(2015). In 2011–12 he was the Mary L. Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the Newhouse Centre at
Wellesley College. He has lectured widely in Singapore, Hong Kong, Turkey, Australia, Israel, and across Africa, Europe, and the United States.
In addition to editing a number of books, Quayson has written essays for many publications, serving also on the editorial boards of journals including ''Research in African Literatures'', ''African Diasporas'', ''
New Literary History
''New Literary History: A Journal of Theory & Interpretation'' is a quarterly academic journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It focuses on the history and theory of literature, and key questions of interpretation. The journal has rec ...
'', ''
University of Toronto Quarterly'', and ''Postcolonial Text''.
He is founding editor of ''The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry'' and was chair of the judges for the 2015
Etisalat Prize for Literature
The 9mobile Prize for Literature (formerly the Etisalat Prize for Literature 2013–16) was created by Etisalat Nigeria in 2013, and is the first ever pan-African prize celebrating first-time African writers of published fiction books. . He also served on the board of the Noma Book Award (1997–2003), Africa's 100 Best Book Selection Panel (2001–2002), and several other literary juries and panels.
His book ''Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism'' was co-winner of the Urban History Association's top award in the international category for books published in 2013–14. Quayson's most recent book is the 2021 publication, ''Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature''
which, in its examination of tragic philosophy from the Greeks through Shakespeare to the present era, deploys postcolonial literature to explore the links between suffering and ethics.
Selected publications
Books
''Oxford Street, Accra; Urban Evolution, Street Life and Itineraries of the Transnational''(
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 D ...
, 2014). Draws on a variety of concepts and disciplines such as anthropology, urban geography, literary theory, and spatial theory to retell the history of
Accra from the perspective of a single street from the 1650s to the present day – the first such interdisciplinary study or urban life African urban studies.
* ''Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature'', 2 volumes, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The first attempt at bringing together essays dealing with the literary history of postcolonial studies, with 42 contributors covering a wide range of topics, divided equally between geographical topics (Postcolonialism and Arab Literature; Postcolonial Literature in Latin America; Canadian Writing and Postcolonialism) and thematic ones (Indigenous Writing in Canada; Orality and the Genres of African Writing; Postcolonial Auto/Biography).
* ''Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation'' (Columbia University Press, 2007). Focusing primarily on the work of
Samuel Beckett,
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...
,
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...
, and
J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in ...
, the book launches a thoroughly cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of the representation of physical disability. The first book to fully bring Euro-American writers alongside postcolonial ones for a discussion of the ubiquitous trope of disability, it is now an acknowledged classic in the fields of disability and postcolonial studies, and chapters from it have been anthologised in various collections.
* ''Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism'', ed. with Girish Daswani (New York: Blackwell, 2013). A volume that brings together for the first time essays dealing with both diaspora and transnationalism, normally kept apart in the literature. It clears the ground for seeing the two as mutually interrelated for the understanding of multi-ethnic liberal polities that have been shaped by the presence of diasporic communities.
''The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel''(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)).
''Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies''(with Girish Daswani; New York: Blackwell, 2013).
''The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature'' 2 volumes (
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
, 2012).
* ''Labour Migration, Human Trafficking and Multinational Corporations'' (with Antonela Arhin; New York:
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, 2012).
* ''Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration'' (Oxford: Ayebia Publishers, 2008)..
* ''African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism'' (with Tejumola Olaniyan; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
* ''Calibrations: Reading for the Social'' (Minneapolis:
Minnesota University Press, 2003).
* ''Relocating Postcolonialism'' (with
David Theo Goldberg
David Theo Goldberg (born January 8, 1952) is a South African professor working in the United States, known for his work in critical race theory, the digital humanities, and the state of the university.
Goldberg was born and raised in South Africa ...
; Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
* ''Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process?'' (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
* ''Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing'' (Oxford and Bloomington:
James Currey
James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topic ...
and
Indiana University Press, 1997). Seeking to trace Nigerian literary history from the perspective of a Yoruba matrix of cultural resources that informed the work of the writers in the title, the book fundamentally critiqued a by-then standard idea in the field that there was a natural relationship between orality and literacy in the work of African writers and rather argued that the presence of orality in African literature was due to the exercise of strategic aesthetic choices, some of which had nothing to do with orality but more to do with the pressures of identity-formation in the evolving nation-state that is Nigeria. The book has gone on to become a classic and is to be found in all African literature survey courses worldwide.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quayson, Ato
Living people
1961 births
University of Toronto faculty
University of Ghana alumni
Male essayists
Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Wellesley College people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Ghanaian non-fiction writers
Ghanaian writers
21st-century male writers
Fellows of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Ghanaian expatriates in the United States
Presidents of the African Studies Association