Africana Studies

The Africana Studies Program offers a major, an interdepartmental major and a minor that explore the history, culture, intellectual heritage and social development of people of African descent.

Through a variety of approaches that draw upon the arts, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, your studies will focus on key aspects of Black life in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

You’ll learn in small classes with faculty from a variety of departments and programs, including Anthropology, Classics, English, Modern Languages and Literatures, Music, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology and Visual Arts. As active scholars and researchers in their respective fields, your professors will guide you as you expand your worldview and gain a deeper understanding of people of African ancestry.

Courses

Students of Africana studies have more than 60 courses from which to choose. Courses cover a broad range of topics, including Black literary arts and women writers, the history of jazz, the civil rights movement, social and political movements in Latin America, Muslim culture, and the history and religion of ancient Egypt. For instance, you may explore the development of African- American poetic voices in North America – such as Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton and Yusef Komunyakaa – in an introductory course on Black poetry. A course called Race and Constitution examines the role of race in the legal, constitutional and political history of the U.S. The Anthropology of Sub-Saharan Africa is an ethnographic and ethnological survey of the diverse peoples and cultures of this vast region.

Terms abroad + away

We offer three unique mini-terms, each three weeks long. An interdisciplinary program in Senegal focuses on the impact of globalization, poverty and AIDS, religion, women’s issues and culture. The South Africa term in Cape Town looks at history from public, individual and historical perspectives. Traveling through the American South on the Civil Rights Public History mini-term, students visit iconic sites and meet with participants of the civil rights movement in numerous cities, from Charleston, S.C., to New Orleans, La.

Student organizations

Students in the Africana Studies Program get involved in a number of clubs and organizations, including the African Student Association, African Dance Club, LatinX Dance Club, National Society of Black Engineers, Muslim Students Association and Portuguese Club.

After Union

Students who graduate with a degree in Africana studies are adept critical thinkers, presenters and researchers as well as global citizens. They have a solid understanding of the diversity that characterizes our society and its workplace, an invaluable trait that serves them well in the workplace. Our students are prepared for graduate study in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences, and for careers in business, community development, education, government, health care, human services, international affairs, journalism, law, public policy and other fields. The degree offers students opportunities for a life of service and meaning – to not only work in society but to help transform it.

What some of our graduates are doing: