African American Studies

专业介绍

The Department of African American Studies offers you the opportunity to study Black history, culture, and society in interdisciplinary models that reconstruct African American life. It challenges you to critically examine facts and issues that are historically and contemporaneously relevant to the African American experience. The department is committed to bringing academic research to the broadest possible audience, with the belief that the deepest understanding of the complex reality of race in America requires a truly interdisciplinary approach, one that draws on courses in music, literature, history, political science, education, and sociology.

African American Studies students gain deeper insight into ongoing racial inequality and social justice, helping them be more informed and empathetic when addressing issues of equity in their future careers. Students will graduate prepared to interact effectively in a multicultural world and workplaces and to share the results of academic research in the area of race with their communities.

Faculty members and students are active in a broad range of activities, including hip-hop programs for at-risk youth, college classes for low-income adults, the Prison Education Initiative, and the Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History. We are proud of our strong, collaborative relationships with  colleagues in many other disciplines, especially the departments of Gender and Women’s Studies, African Cultural Studies, English, ​History, and the School of Education.