Partnership with the University of Ghana

As part of the strategic partnership with the University of Ghana, doctoral students and professors also visited Siegen last semester. While academic exchanges have been taking place for some time in the fields of social work and musicology, Faculty I—specifically the Department of English—has only been involved for a year. 

Together with doctoral student Kobina Duncan, Prof. Sprang taught an M.A. course on the representation of social conflicts and violence in West African novels and films. As part of the exchange, Prof. Gladys N. Ansah, a linguist in the Department of English at the University of Ghana, gave a lecture—moderated by Prof. Kunter—on culturally shaped spatial metaphors among English speakers in Ghana. 

Funding for the collaboration depends on the approval of further grant applications. With an eye toward future collaborations, partners on both sides are developing research and teaching projects. 

In the Department of English, collaborations are planned for the 2027 summer semester in the areas of Shakespeare reception, cognitive linguistics, and reading research. Prof. Florian Heesch continues to conduct research with colleagues from Ghana on the Ghanaian Highlife music genre in the context of studying intercultural popular music and expanding the European canon. In Social Work, research is continuing on the joint project “Life Course and Transitions of Persons with Disabilities in West African Societies,” which Prof. Schädler co-leads with Prof. Efua Esaaba Mantey Agyire-Tettey, who was also a visiting scholar in Siegen last semester.