Africana Studies

The undergraduate program in Africana Studies (AFST) engages students in a critical examination of the intellectual, political, economic, and cultural challenges and achievements of Africans and Africandescended peoples. The study of these diverse and dynamic traditions does much more than embracing the centrality of race. It also encompasses imperial, national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious currents and intersections in such farflung settings as Africa, North America, the Caribbean Basin, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe.The Program draws on wideranging fields of inquiry including history, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, religion, literature, music, drama, dance, film, and the visual arts. Through coursework that integrates and at often transcends disciplinary knowledge, students learn to appreciate the specificity of Africa and its offshoots, the ways in which local and global forces interacted to shape a shared identity of Blackness as well as communityspecific identities, and the trajectories of syncretism and other forms of intercultural exchange.