P. Kwame Adika acquired a PhD in African and African Diasporan Literary Studies from Illinois State University in 2009. This was after securing his BA (in Linguistics and English) at the University of Ghana and MA (in Afro-American Studies) at Illinois State University.  He made his first, tentative move into a career in academia by joining the Department of English as a Teaching Assistant in 2000 and a year later, relocated to the Language Centre to become a Senior Research Assistant. He has been a full-time member of faculty at the University of Ghana since 2009 and is currently with the Language Centre where he teaches undergraduate-level courses in academic communication skills and literature. His core research is in the areas of postcolonial trauma aesthetics, poetry and mythopoesis, and pan-Africanist literary intertextualism, and his published work often probes the intersections of the three thematic areas. Apart from contributions to peer-reviewed academic books, he has also published in both local and international scholarly journals. 

Selected Publications: 

Adika, Kwame P.  "Re-imagining Ghanaian Diasporic Traffic to the USA amidst the Looming Specter of Trump," Diversity Issues and the U.S. 2024 Elections. Eds. Melanie Kreitler and Greta Olson, Giessen. 2024. 

Adika, Kwame P. and Tettey. J. "Transcending the Trauma of a Stampeded Past and a Cyclonic Present," New Scholarship on Ghanaian Literatures, Languages and Cultures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2024.

Adika Kwame P., “Deconstructing the Terrible Gift of Postcolonial African Lives: A Reading of Martin Egblewogbe’s Mr. Happy and the Hammer of God & Other Stories.” Legon Journal of Humanities, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (2021).

Adika, Kwame P., “Post-Colonial Trauma and the Poetics of Re-Membering in the Novels of Kofi Awoonor,” African Literature Today. Ed. Ernest E. Emenyonu. Vol. 32. (2014). 158-172. Print.

Adika, Kwame P., “Inter-generational Intertextualities in Ghanaian Literature: A Comparative Study of Intellectuals as Messiahs in Selected Works by Ayi Kwei Armah and Mohammed Naseehu Ali,” New Perspectives on African Humanity: Beliefs, Values & Artistic Expression. Eds. Gordon S.K. Adika, George Ossom-Batsa, and Helen Yitah. (2014). 62-89. Print.

Adika, Kwame P., “Transnational Impulses in Some Recent Ghanaian Works of Prose,” Ghanaian Voices on Topics in English Language and Literature. Eds. A.N. Mensah, Jemima A. Anderson, and Prince Kwame Adika. Oxford: Ayerbia Clarke Publishing, (2013). 55-68. Print.

Adika, Kwame P., “The Transnational Logic of Contemporary Ghanaian Poetry,” The One in the Many: Nation-Building through Cultural Diversity. Eds. Helen Lauer, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, and Joanna Boampong. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers (2013). 230-242. Print.

Adika, Kwame P., “Marking Transgressive Spaces and Bodies: A Review of Contemporary Ghanaian Poetry,” Legon Journal of Humanities. Ed. Helen A. Yitah. Vol. 22 (2011). 1-26. Print.

Edited Book: 

A.N. Mensah, Jemima A. Anderson, and P. Kwame Adika. Ghanaian Voices on Topics in English Language and Literature. Eds. Oxford: Ayerbia Clarke Publishing, (2013). 55-68. Print.

Selected Conference Papers:                      

“Transcolonial Bodies in the Age of Necropolitics: The Case of Korouma’s Child Soldiers,” 4th Biennial African Studies Association of Africa Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, April 2022. 

“The Cynical Logic of Postcolonial Existential Imperatives: Mapping Tradition and Change in Anansegoro,” 4th School of Languages Conference: Literacy, Linguistic and Cultural Studies in a Time of Crisis, University of Ghana, Legon, 3-5 November, 2021

“Crises Autobiographies in Academic Environments: A Study of Two Ghanaian Texts,” 4th School of Languages Conference: Literacy, Linguistic and Cultural Studies in a Time of Crisis, University of Ghana, Legon, November, 2021—co-authored with Dr. David A. Odoi

“Policing Wokeness in Postcolonial Ghana: Literary and Media Representations of the War on Social Consciousness Discourse in Ghana,” Wokeness, Sleepwalking, and Stupors: The War on Social Justice Discourse, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa: October 6, 2021

"Post-Colonial Trauma and the Poetics of Re-Membering in the Novels of Kofi Awoonor," African Literature Association Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, April, 2014

 “The Transnational Logic of Contemporary Ghanaian Poetry,” University of Ghana Faculty of Arts Symposium, Legon, Ghana April, 2011

“Anyidoho’s Intentional Transgressions,” African Literature Association Conference, Athens, Ohio, April 2011

“To Re-member the Unmentionable, Mention the Unmentionable: K. Azasu as a Chronicler of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” African Literature Association Conference, Tucson, Arizona, April 2010

“Visions of Homecoming: A Look at Postcolonial African and African Diasporan Kinship Dialogues,” African Studies Association Conference, Chicago, IL Nov., 2008

“Re-membering Kinship: African and African Diasporan Narratives of Return,” African Literature Association Conference, Macomb, IL, April, 2008