Kofi Asare Opoku is a former chair of the Ghana Institute of African Studies and a retired Professor of African Traditional Religion from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, USA. He has taught and delivered numerous lectures on African culture and world religions across the globe in the past forty years. Professor Opoku’s grandfather, Theophilus Opoku, was the first African to be ordained in Ghana in 1872. After Professor Opoku graduated from seminary, he became interested in African Traditional Religion, and made the decision not to be ordained. He holds degrees from Yale University Divinity School and the University of Ghana. 
  Opoku has published several books, including West African Traditional Religion (1978); Healing for God’s World: Remedies from Three Continents, with Kim Yong-Bock and Antoinette C. Wire (1991); Hearing and Keeping: Akan Proverbs (1997); andSpeak to the Winds: Proverbs from Africa (1975). Opoku has also authored numerous articles and papers on African culture, spirituality, and religions and their impact on Western ideas. He is currently a farmer at Mampong, Akuapem, in Ghana’s Eastern Region.

Abstract: The humour found in African proverbs is not merely intended to induce laughter or amusement. Rather, it is the water with which the pill of wisdom (proverbs) is swallowed.

Generous support was provided by the Center for World Performance Studies and the African Studies Center

​For further information, please contact (734) 764-5517 or email ecnirp@umich.edu​