The primary objective of the Africana Studies program is to prepare students to meet their educational, professional, and personal goals by way of an investigation of black diasporic cultures and knowledges. Towards this end, students in the African Studies major and minor should be able to:

  • Recognize and appreciate the contributions of people of African descent to various disciplines and fields
  • Understand the African continent and its people as complex, multi-dimensional, and ever-evolving subjects
  • Situate the histories of Africa and its diaspora within a global context
  • Articulate the present world and author alternative ones in response to theories, insights, experiences, and practices that relate to and emerge from people of African descent
  • Interrogate the meanings and effects of race and racism (particularly as these concepts relate to blackness) and how they are interconnected to other systems of identity and power
  • Appreciate the realities and representations that attend black life throughout the world