Africana Studies

The Africana Studies major offers an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to the study of the history, politics, cultures, literatures, and experiences of peoples in Africa and the African Diaspora. Africa’s own overlapping modernities and the transnational migrations of its peoples—whether forced or voluntary—have complicated the meanings of “black” and “African” identities and experiences, prompting us to rethink the geographical boundaries and conceptual paradigms surrounding the production of knowledge about Africa and its diasporic communities. Therefore, this course of study, focuses students on the centrality of Africa and the Black Diaspora in the modern world toward their developing a critical understanding of the political, social, and ideological forces that shape the lives of Africans and Diasporic Africans in the world. This makes the program is a site for cross-cultural teaching and research in the histories, cultures, economies, politics, and practices of African Diasporas in Africa, the Americas (North and South), the Caribbean, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Middle East.