Hasty, Jennifer

views updated

Hasty, Jennifer

(Mary Jennifer Hasty)

PERSONAL:

Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1991; Duke University, Ph.D., 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Culture and Communication, Drexel University, 3228-50 Powelton Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail—mary.jennifer.hasty@drexel.edu.

CAREER:

Newspaper reporter in Ghana, 1996-97; University of Ghana, Legon, research affiliate, 1996-97; Center for Africa and Media, Durham, NC, research associate, 1998; Duke University, Durham, instructor, 1999; Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, assistant professor of anthropology, 1999-2006; University of Pennsylvania, Center for African Studies, Philadelphia, PA, former research associate; Drexel University, Philadelphia, adjunct professor, 2006—. Research fellow, Center for Democracy and Development, Accra, Ghana, 2004-05; assistant to principal investigator, Serious Fraud Office, Accra, 2004-05. Lecturer at University of Leiden, University of Amsterdam, University of Birmingham, Harvard University, Rutgers University, University of Florida, Cornell University, and University of Pennsylvania.

MEMBER:

American Anthropological Association, Society for Cultural Anthropology, American Ethnological Society, African Studies Association, Ghana Studies Council.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation predoctoral fellow, 1997-98; Regency Scholars Award, Pacific Lutheran University, 2000 and 2001; summer research grant, Nordic Approach to Democracy and Development, 2002; Wenner-Gren Foundation grant, 2006; Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2007.

WRITINGS:

The Press and Political Culture in Ghana, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 2005.

Contributor to World Press Encyclopedia, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002. Contributor to Cultural Anthropology, Public Culture, Ghana Studies, Africa Today, Journal of Cultural Studies, African Affairs, Ghanian Independent, Ghanian Chronicle, Daily Graphic, and Public Agenda.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jennifer Hasty is a scholar of African culture. In particular, her work has focused on the prospect for democracy and a free press in the country of Ghana. In the late 1990s she worked as a reporter in that nation. She returned to the United States to teach at several colleges and universities, including Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Drexel University. Hasty is also a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Cultural Anthropology, the American Ethnological Society, the African Studies Association, and the Ghana Studies Council. She has also been a research fellow at Ghana's Center for Democracy and Development.

In The Press and Political Culture in Ghana, Hasty examines the role of a free press in the African country of Ghana. In 1994, the Ghanaian government removed a long-standing prohibition of independent newspapers. The change resulted in a period of intense growth of newspapers of all kinds, reflecting a range of political opinions. Hasty looks at both the government-run newspapers in which the official policies of the Ghanaian regime were made available to the public and the privately-owned newspapers published by businessmen or opposition leaders. Some of her observations are based on having worked for several Ghanaian newspapers of the time, including the Ghanaian Independent, Daily Graphic, and the Ghanaian Chronicle. According to Nicolas van de Walle in Foreign Affairs, "Hasty provides us with a cultural view of the Ghanaian newspaper industry in the late 1990s. Her analysis is often trenchant." "Hasty's book … is a high-minded study," wrote Akin Adesokan in Africa Today. Adesokan concluded: "This is an important book about how ordinary but educated people draw upon cultural and technological resources to resist political oppression."