Affiliation: Syracuse University
Professor Christopher DeCorse is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department at Syracuse University. He is also a Senior Research Associate of the Maxwell African Scholars Union, and leads ongoing research projects in coastal Ghana and Sierra Leone. His areas of expertise include African archaeology and history, colonialism and change, and archaeology in popular culture. He uses archaeology as a tool for uncovering the transformations that occurred in African societies during the Atlantic trade. He has authored many publications and textbooks, including An Archaeology of Elmina: Africans and Europeans on the Gold Coast, 1400-1900 (Percheron Press, 2021), Power, Political Economy, and Historical Landscapes of the Modern World (SUNY Press 2019), British Forts and Their Communities (co-edited with Zachary Beier, University of Florida Press, 2018), and Anthropology: A Global Perspective” (with Raymond Scupin, Sage Publishing 9th Edition, 2021) among many others. Professor DeCorse is one of the AIA Joukowsky Lecturers for the 2024/2025 National Lecture Program season.
Castle Cormantine, founded in 1632 on the coast of what is now modern Ghana, was England’s first outpost in Africa. Occupied for little more than three decades before its capture by the Dutch, the fort nonetheless played a key role in shaping African—European interactions and the nascence of the Atlantic slave trade. In time, the name Cormantine or Coromantee became synonymous with slaves from the entire Ghanaian coast throughout the English-speaking colonies of the Americas, and the name resonates down to the present day. Castle Cormantine is an iconic symbol of a trade that brought millions of enslaved Africans to the Americas. In a well-illustrated lecture, Professor DeCorse will tell the story of Castle Cormantine’s rediscovery, continuing threats to its preservation, and its lasting legacies.
Christopher R. De Corse is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Anthropology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. His research interests include African archaeology and history, general anthropology, and archaeology in popular culture. His work in West Africa focuses on the Atlantic period, particularly the impacts of the slave trade, and understanding these transformations in terms of Africa’s pre-Atlantic past. He currently directs ongoing research projects in coastal Ghana and in Sierra Leone. His books include An Archaeology of Elmina: Africans and Europeans on the Gold Coast, 1400-1900 (Percheron Press, 2021), Power, Political Economy, and Historical Landscapes of the Modern World (SUNY Press, 2019), British Forts and Their Communities: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (University Press of Florida, 2018), and West Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological Perspectives (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). Dr. DeCorse has also published several textbooks, including Fringe Archaeology newly released by Cognella, and a new introduction to archaeology and world prehistory forthcoming with Sage Publishing.
