Professor David Owusu-Ansah

David Owusu-Ansah teaches African History at James Madison University in the United States. He holds his Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University (USA), a master’s degree in Islamic Studies from McGill University (Canada), and a bachelor’s degree with Honors in Comparative Religions and Education from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. A former fellow of the Harry S. Truman Institute for International Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), Dr. Owusu-Ansah has taught at the university in full faculty position since 1985. In addition to developing and teaching broad range of courses in African History, World Civilizations, and Historical Methods, he has also served in several important administrative roles—from being the founding director of Africana Studies Minor at his institution to service in a five-year term as international president of the Ghana Studies Council, now the Ghana Studies Association.

In 2007, Dr. Owusu-Ansah was appointed as one of two special assistants to the president for diversity at James Madison University. He later transitioned to become the executive director for faculty access and inclusion, the inaugural associate provost for diversity (2018-2022) and now the executive director for access and educational outreach. The summer abroad program in Ghana that he founded for his American students in 1996 was the first at James Madison University on the African continent. Sustained in partnerships with the Language Center at the University of Ghana, Dr. Owusu-Ansah equally relies on visits to Museums and Heritage Centers as course contexts for his students’ engagement in Ghana.

In the areas of research and scholarship, Dr. Owusu-Ansah is known for his work on Islam. His Talismanic Traditions in Nineteenth Century Asante (1991), and the co-authored Islamic Learning, the State, and the Challenges of Education in Ghana (2013, with Mark Sey and Abdulai Iddrisu) are well-cited. He is also the author of the second, third and fourth editions of the Historical Dictionary of Ghana (1995, 2005, and 2014). The fifth edition of was co-authored with Professor Edmund Abeka (University of Miami) in 2024. His most recent published articles include the piece on the first British Consul to Kumasi in 1919, Joseph Dupuis. The essay on religious knowledge and political power in Asante, co-authored with Professor Emmanuel Akyeampong at Harvard, is in the March 2022 issue of the Journal of West African History. Dr. Owusu-Ansah continues to be active as a scholar and an academic advisory team member to the Sanneh Institute for Engaging Church and Mosque Relations in West Africa based in Accra, Ghana.