ASSOSA boy, Ato Quayson appointed head of Stanford Department of English

An old student of the Apam Senior Secondary School in the Central Region, now Apam Senior High School, Professor Ato Quayson has been appointed head of the Department of English at the Stanford University, California, USA.

A Ghanaian author cum professor currently the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of English at the University is set to assume his new role in September 2021.

Profile of Ato Quayson

Professor Quayson had his basic education at St. Theresa’s School in North Kaneshie, Accra, his Ordinary and Advanced Levels GCE at Apam Secondary School and a First-Class Honors in English and Arabic from the the University of Ghana before heading to the UK to pursue higher education,  a Ph.D at University of Cambridge, UK.

From Cambridge, the Ghanaian literary critic and Professor of English began a career as Junior Research Fellow at the Wolfson College, a graduate college of the Oxford University.

The Cambridge Commonwealth scholar returned to his alma mater from 1994-2005 and became a Reader in Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literature in the Faculty of English and later served as the Director of the Centre for African Studies and a Fellow of Pembroke College, another constituent of the Oxford University.

In 2017 to 2019, the renowned Professor, left England for Canada where he became the Professor of English and inaugural Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto and became a University Professor at the University of Toronto in 2016, the highest distinction that the university can confer on an individual.

Other credentials

Professor Quayson has served in various capacities including a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, W.E.B.Du Bois Institute at Harvard University and the Research Centre in the Humanities at the Australian National University.

He was an  L. Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the Newhouse Centre at Wellesley College  and  lectured widely in Singapore, Hong Kong, Turkey, Australia, Israel, and across Africa, Europe, and the United States.

Ato Quayson served as the President of the African Studies Association up until last year and was an elected fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, The British Academy, and the Royal Society of Canada.

Books and Publications

The award winning Oxford Street writer and publisher has served on several editorial boards and authored many books and featured in many publications including six monographs and eight edited volumes. Some of his works include An Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory (with Tejumola Olaniyan, 2007), Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration (2008), Labor Migration, Human Trafficking, and Multinational Corporations, (with Antonela Arhin, 2012). His most recent work is Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature, published by Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Ato Quayson exude excellence, brilliance and eminence – Dotsei Malor

A  Former Deputy Editor, Focus on Africa at British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Ben Dotsei Malor  who shared news of Mr Quayson’s appointment described him as someone who  “exude excellence, brilliance, and eminence”.

Source: GhanaPlus.com