Fishing boats next to Cape Coast Castle

Cosponsored by The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies and the School of Architecture, with technical support from the Robertson Media Center's Digital Media Lab and the Virginia Center for Digital History, this cross-disciplinary J-term program targets advanced undergraduates whose research interests focus on discerning cultural patterns and deciphering expressions of change in the built, natural, and social environments. 

Through the townscape of Cape Coast, Ghana, we will investigate methods of reading urban cultural landscapes while engaging in community-based service learning projects. The course and its associated service learning projects will build upon the Conservation and Tourism Development Plan for Cape Coast, developed by community stakeholders (with input from Project Directors Maurice Cox and Gina Haney) and implemented over the past eight years. 

The course will be taught in a seminar/workshop format with a majority of the time spent in the field with administrators and residents of Cape Coast. Students will be graded on class participation/community engagement (30%), field journal (30%), oral presentation of proposed service learning project (10%), and final presentation to community stakeholders (30%).

The course will unfold within the diverse historical and cultural contexts of Cape Coast, from its origins as a Fante settlement to its establishment as a European trading center on Africa's "Gold Coast" in the seventeenth century, through the eras of slavery and abolition, colonial rule and independence.

The physical presence of Cape Coast Castle, one of dozens of European-built forts and castles from the slave trade era that still dot the West African coastline, looms large over the historical landscape. In The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade, historian William St. Clair writes that the Castle "was the headquarters in Africa of the entire British involvement in the slave trade. For 143 years (1664-1807), it was, in the words of one of its British governors, the grand emporium of the British slave trade. From this building perched on the shore of the South Atlantic Ocean, men, women, and children born in Africa were sold to British slave ships and carried to the West Indies, to North and South America, and to destinations elsewhere.... The Castle today is well preserved, partially restored, and excellently presented, with an informative museum. Along with other castles and forts in Ghana, it is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site."

But there is much more to Cape Coast than its world-famous castle. In 2000, the U.S. National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) organized a design & planning workshop, cosponsored by Conservation International and the Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, for conservation and tourism development for Cape Coast, Ghana. "For many years," the conferees wrote,

the Castle has served as an educational resource, a role being significantly extended and enhanced under the present Natural Resource Conservation and Historic Preservation Project.... But the town that has grown up over the past three years outside the walls of the Castle has hardly begun to be exploited as an educational resource. Still less has the historic core of the town been explored as an economic resource, despite its potential for economic regeneration as a major tourist venue -- comparable with Mombasa in Kenya, Goa in India, Cartagena in Colombia -- providing hotels, guest houses, restaurants, bars, museums, shops, craft workshops, artists' studios, and a whole range of cultural, commercial and recreational facilities. Individual historic buildings, groups of buildings, public and private open spaces within and around groups of buildings, are capable of adaptation for one or another of the above uses.

Community-Based Service Learning Projects

All of the community-based service learning projects planned for this J-Term course draw inspiration from the Conservation & Tourism Development Plan developed by participants in the Cape Coast Design Workshop. Indeed, the digitized portions of the plan made available through the Cape Coast Archive are required reading for all participants.

1. Programming Space for Renovated Gothic House/Oguaa Traditional Palace Gothic House (right) was built by James Dawson as his main residence and trading establishment around 1815. Jacob Wilson-Sey owned it for many years before turning it over to the Ghanaian government shortly after Ghana achieved independence. Occupied until recently by various municipal government departments and non-governmental organizations, the now-vacant complex is slated to become the headquarters for the Oguaa Traditional Council and official residence for the Omanhen of Oguaa (the traditional chief of Cape Coast). Students will work with community leaders to produce a plan for the adaptive reuse of Gothic House with and eye toward international fundraising. Reading: Gothic House Historic Preservation Strategy
2. Walking Tour Itineraries for Asafo Shrines Students will work with Asafo company leaders and other community stakeholders to document Cape Coast's unique shrines and produce visual guides/walking tour itineraries. (Company No. 7's shrine, featuring the image of a whale, is pictured at right.) Reading: Doran H. Ross, “‘Come and Try’: Toward a History of Fante Military Shrines,” African Arts (August 2007): 12-35.
3. History Harvest Students will work with local residents to record family/community histories and preserve documentary records for public display in Heritage House (pictured at right). The recently restored former colonial governor's house, occupied by the Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust, has classrooms, computers, and exhibition space.
4. Revitalization of Zongo District Students will work with local residents to repair and revitalize a public square within the Islamic neighborhood known as the Zongo district. Reading: Joseph A. Sarfoh, "The West African Zongo and the American Ghetto: Some Comparative Aspects of the Roles of Religious Institutions," Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Sep., 1986), pp. 71-84. .
5. Public Art Projects Students will work with artist-in-residence Samuel Tete-Katchan (picture at right) on public art project in areas designated by community stakeholders. Mr. Tete-Katchan has previously designed and painted a mural for Cape Coast's central market.

Program Directors & Teaching Faculty

• Maurice D. Cox, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, has taught various graduate seminars focusing on community-based, collaborative processes of urban place making. A former mayor of Charlottesville, he is widely known as an advocate for citizen participation in the important planning decisions that affect a community's life.  In 1999, he participated as an urban planner in the Cape Coast, Ghana, planning charrette sponsored by US/ICOMOS.  In 2001, he partnered with Scot French in the teaching of ARCH 566/AAS 406A: Community as Classroom: A Case Study of Cape Coast, Ghana. 
  
  
• Scot A. French, Associate Professor, Department of History, specializes in the study of collective memory and the presence of the past in urban landscapes. From 2002 to 2006, he co-taught AAS 101: Africa in the Atlantic World, an introductory survey course that explores the origins and development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the perspective of Africa and its people. Historical in focus, the course also dealt with contemporary debates over the meaning and memory of the slave trade as interpreted through the “slave castles” of Elmina and Cape Coast.
  
  
• Gina Haney, Ghana J-Term Project Coordinator, is an architectural historian specializing in community-based urban planning. From 1998 to 2000 she coordinated the historic preservation component of the Central Region Project in Cape Coast for US/ICOMOS, a program that received broad recognition and regional awards.  As a result of her extended stay, Haney has numerous local contacts who will be available to assist and guide student work.
  
  

J-Term program director Maurice Cox takes pictures of children in Cape Coast's Zongo district.

U.Va. Prof. Reginald Butler and J-Term program director Scot French outside Cape Coast Castle.

Housing/Meals

Students will be housed in western-style hotels/guest houses with restaurant service featuring Ghanaian cuisine.

Application Procedures & Program Deadlines

Students must complete the UVA Study Abroad application on-line at www.studyabroad.virginia.edu.

Applications are due no later than Monday, October 1, 2007, but may be submitted on-line at any time prior to that date. Further application information is available on-line.

Important: Students must have a passport, valid through July 2008 (six months after return date), at time of application. This will ensure that there are no delays in processing applications for visas required to enter Ghana. The visa application fee is included in program cost. Students are also required to have a valid certificate of immunization for yellow fever for submission with visa application.

Key Dates:

Sept. 19: Study Abroad Fair, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Newcomb Hall Plaza. A representative from Student Financial Services will be on hand to answer questions.

Oct. 1: Study Abroad application, $500 nonrefundable deposit, and priority financial aid application due.

Oct. 9: Notification of acceptance or waitlisting.

Oct. 10: Mandatory J-term logistics meeting, 6-7 p.m., Minor 125.

Oct. 12: Financial aid awards announced by this date.

Oct. 14: Deadline for commitment to program

Oct. 15: Accepted students who have not committed by date this will be dropped and replaced with waitlisted students.

Oct. 17: Deadline for waitlisted student commitment.

Oct. 18: Deadline for full payment.

Tuition & Fees / Financial Aid