Africana Studies

Africana Studies is a cross-disciplinary area of study that is necessarily global in scope and theoretically diverse. This minor gives you a core course to ground your pursuit of African, African American, Afro-Caribbean and Black studies in a survey of the major themes and ideas of the discipline. The remainder of the minor is flexible, allowing you to select courses that match your interests and schedules. These include courses from across campus, including performing arts, sociology, history, political science, literature, environmental science and special topics courses.

School/Division

Campus Locations

Main Campus - Alfred, NY

Major

none offered

Minor

Africana Studies

You must complete at least 18 credit hours of courses designated or approved for the Africana Studies minor. You must take at least one* of the following:

  • Psychology of the African American Experience OR
    HIST 200 African American History Since 1863
    *You may take both - the additional course will count toward the remaining 14 credits of the minor

The remaining 14 credits should be taken from this selection of courses:

  • DANC 200 African Dance
  • ENGL 222/SJST 222 The Harlem Renaissance
  • ENGL 434 African-American Literature
  • ENVS 301 Ecology of the Bahamas
  • HIST 377 History of American Slavery
  • HIST 360 Africa Today
  • SOCI 355/SJST 355 Power, Privilege & Inequality
  • SOCI 343 Race & Ethnicity
  • SPAN 217 Exiled from Justice: Equatorial Guinean Writers in Africa & Spain
  • SOC/WGST/SJST 300 Race and Reproduction
  • FREN/GLBS 300 Le Monde Francophone
  • DANC 225 Hip Hop

New and special topics courses can be counted with submission of a syllabus to the Africana Studies team. Any instructor who offers a course that achieves the learning outcomes of the minor should submit their syllabus to the coordinator(s) for approval.

**At least 8 of the credits besides the Core Required Course must be 300- or 400- level.

  • Recognize and affirm the central place of Africans, African Americans and Black people in global history and society
  • Explore the contributions of Black and African diasporic peoples to literature, politics, art, history, medicine, science, music, theater, athletics, society and all disciplines
  • Consider the study of blackness to be central to the intellectual and practical study of any other discipline; Africana studies is not outside of other academic homes, but an integral part of them.
  • Understand the radical and politicized origins of the Black and Africana Studies academic units and to engage in the ongoing debate about its evolving role in higher education curricula
  • Critically engage critical race theory, racism and anti-racism, colorblindness and other theoretical apparatuses that underpin the discipline of Black and Africana studies
  • Explore the diversity of the African diaspora
  • Partner with communities, on campus and beyond campus, to create practical and synergistic applications for the material learned in the classroom
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