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African American Studies Minor: Unveiling the Rich Tapestry of Black History and Culture
Author: Dr. Evelyn Reed, PhD, Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Reed has over 15 years of experience in teaching and researching African American history, literature, and culture. Her publications include "The Untold Stories of Black Resistance" and "Reimagining Black Futures."
Keyword: African American Studies Minor
Publisher: Higher Education Press, a leading publisher of academic texts and resources known for its rigorous editorial process and commitment to scholarly excellence.
Editor: Professor Anya Anyadike, PhD, a renowned scholar in African American literature and cultural studies. Professor Anyadike has served on numerous editorial boards and holds a distinguished reputation in the field.
Abstract: This article explores the significance and relevance of an African American Studies minor. It delves into the core curriculum components, career benefits, and the broader societal impact of engaging with this vital area of study. We will examine the historical context of the field, its evolving methodologies, and its crucial role in fostering a more inclusive and equitable understanding of American history and society. The article emphasizes the value of an African American Studies minor for students across various disciplines, promoting critical thinking and fostering a deeper engagement with social justice issues.
Why Choose an African American Studies Minor?
An African American Studies minor offers a unique opportunity to delve deeply into the rich and complex history, culture, and experiences of African Americans. It transcends a simple chronological recounting of events, instead offering a critical lens through which to understand the ongoing impact of slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism on American society. This minor is not simply about the past; it's about understanding the present and shaping a more just future.
The curriculum of an African American Studies minor typically covers a wide range of topics, including:
History: Students will explore the pre-colonial history of Africa, the transatlantic slave trade, the Reconstruction era, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary social justice movements. This historical exploration often includes examining primary sources, allowing students to engage directly with the voices and experiences of those who lived through these pivotal moments.
Literature: The study of African American literature provides access to powerful narratives that express the resilience, creativity, and struggles of Black people throughout history. Students will engage with canonical and contemporary works, analyzing the themes of identity, freedom, resistance, and social justice prevalent in these texts.
Sociology and Anthropology: These disciplines offer frameworks for understanding the social structures and cultural practices that shape the experiences of African Americans. Students will learn about concepts like intersectionality, racial inequality, and the impact of social institutions on Black communities.
Political Science: The political landscape of the United States has been profoundly shaped by the struggles of African Americans for equality and justice. This area of study examines the political strategies, movements, and achievements of Black activists and leaders, exploring the complexities of race and politics in America.
Art and Music: African American artistic expressions serve as powerful vehicles for cultural preservation and social commentary. Students will explore the diverse artistic traditions of Black communities, examining the ways in which art and music reflect and shape cultural identities.
The Significance and Relevance of an African American Studies Minor
The relevance of an African American Studies minor extends far beyond the academic realm. It is crucial for several reasons:
Understanding Systemic Racism: The minor provides the tools to critically analyze the systems and structures that perpetuate racial inequality. This understanding is essential for addressing contemporary issues such as mass incarceration, police brutality, and economic disparity.
Promoting Social Justice: By gaining a deeper understanding of the historical and ongoing struggles of African Americans, students are empowered to become agents of social change. The skills developed in critical analysis and research can be applied to advocacy work, community organizing, and policy reform.
Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills: The rigorous curriculum of an African American Studies minor fosters critical thinking, research, and analytical skills that are transferable to many other fields. Students learn to evaluate information critically, construct well-supported arguments, and engage in thoughtful dialogue on complex issues.
Building Empathy and Understanding: Engaging with the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of African Americans cultivates empathy, understanding, and respect for different cultures. This fosters a more inclusive and tolerant society.
Career Advancement: An African American Studies minor can be a valuable asset in a variety of career paths, demonstrating commitment to social justice and providing a unique skill set. Graduates may pursue careers in education, social work, law, journalism, public policy, and many other fields where understanding racial dynamics is crucial.
Career Opportunities with an African American Studies Minor
A background in African American Studies opens doors to a variety of fulfilling and impactful careers. The skills gained, such as critical thinking, research, and communication, are highly valued across numerous sectors. Examples include:
Education: Teaching at the K-12 or university level, curriculum development, educational advocacy.
Social Work: Working with marginalized communities, providing support services, advocating for policy changes.
Law: Working on civil rights cases, criminal justice reform, and legal advocacy.
Journalism and Media: Reporting on social justice issues, producing documentaries, creating media content that promotes understanding and empathy.
Public Policy and Government: Working on legislation related to racial justice, developing policies that address systemic inequalities.
Non-profit Organizations: Working for organizations focused on civil rights, social justice, and community development.
Museum Studies and Archives: Curating exhibits, preserving historical records, and engaging the public with African American history and culture.
Conclusion
An African American Studies minor is far more than just a collection of courses; it's a transformative experience that expands understanding, cultivates empathy, and empowers students to contribute to a more just and equitable world. By exploring the rich tapestry of African American history, culture, and experience, students gain valuable skills and knowledge applicable to a wide range of careers while developing a deeper appreciation for the ongoing struggle for social justice. The impact of this minor extends beyond the individual, contributing to a more informed and engaged citizenry capable of tackling the complex challenges facing our society.
FAQs
1. What is the difference between an African American Studies major and minor? A major requires a significantly higher number of credit hours dedicated to the field, leading to deeper specialization. A minor provides a foundational understanding without the extensive commitment of a major.
2. Is an African American Studies minor beneficial for students outside the humanities? Absolutely. The critical thinking, research, and communication skills developed are valuable in any field. It enhances understanding of social dynamics, relevant across disciplines.
3. What kind of writing will I do in an African American Studies minor? Expect various writing styles including research papers, analytical essays, critical reviews of literature and films, and potentially creative writing projects.
4. Are there internship opportunities related to an African American Studies minor? Yes, many universities offer opportunities to intern with organizations focused on social justice, cultural preservation, or community development.
5. Can I combine an African American Studies minor with other minors or majors? Yes, it's common to combine it with majors and minors in history, sociology, political science, English, journalism, and many others.
6. What are the prerequisites for an African American Studies minor? Prerequisites vary by institution but typically involve introductory level courses in history, sociology, or related fields.
7. How will an African American Studies minor improve my job prospects? It demonstrates a commitment to social justice and provides valuable skills in critical thinking, research, and communication – highly valued in many fields.
8. Is the curriculum solely focused on the negative aspects of African American history? While acknowledging the hardships faced, the curriculum also celebrates resilience, achievements, and cultural richness. It provides a balanced perspective.
9. Are there opportunities for study abroad related to African American Studies? While less common than other fields, some programs offer study abroad opportunities focusing on African diaspora studies or relevant historical sites.
Related Articles:
1. The Evolution of African American Studies: From Marginalized Field to Interdisciplinary Powerhouse: This article traces the historical development of African American Studies, highlighting its intellectual evolution and increasing influence on academia and society.
2. African American Literature and the Construction of Identity: An exploration of how African American authors have utilized literature to explore themes of identity, race, and belonging.
3. The Civil Rights Movement and its Lasting Impact on American Society: A deep dive into the key figures, events, and legacies of the Civil Rights Movement.
4. Systemic Racism in the Criminal Justice System: An analysis of how racial bias operates within the criminal justice system, from policing to sentencing.
5. The Role of Art and Music in the African American Struggle for Freedom: An examination of the powerful role of artistic expression in shaping cultural identity and fostering social change.
6. African American Women and the Fight for Equality: A focus on the contributions and struggles of African American women throughout history.
7. Contemporary Challenges Facing African American Communities: This article addresses current issues such as economic inequality, healthcare disparities, and environmental injustice.
8. African American Studies and the Future of Higher Education: Discusses the ongoing role and importance of African American Studies in shaping the educational landscape.
9. African American Political Thought and Activism: An analysis of prominent figures and movements that have shaped African American political thought and action.
| african american studies minor: Integrating the 40 Acres Dwonna Goldstone, 2012-01-01 You name it, we can't do it. That was how one African American student at the University of Texas at Austin summed up his experiences in a 1960 newspaper article--some ten years after the beginning of court-mandated desegregation at the school. In this first full-length history of the university's desegregation, Dwonna Goldstone examines how, for decades, administrators only gradually undid the most visible signs of formal segregation while putting their greatest efforts into preventing true racial integration. In response to the 1956 Board of Regents decision to admit African American undergraduates, for example, the dean of students and the director of the student activities center stopped scheduling dances to prevent racial intermingling in a social setting. Goldstone's coverage ranges from the 1950 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the University of Texas School of Law had to admit Heman Sweatt, an African American, through the 1994 Hopwood v. Texas decision, which ended affirmative action in the state's public institutions of higher education. She draws on oral histories, university documents, and newspaper accounts to detail how the university moved from open discrimination to foot-dragging acceptance to mixed successes in the integration of athletics, classrooms, dormitories, extracurricular activities, and student recruitment. Goldstone incorporates not only the perspectives of university administrators, students, alumni, and donors, but also voices from all sides of the civil rights movement at the local and national level. This instructive story of power, race, money, and politics remains relevant to the modern university and the continuing question about what it means to be integrated. |
| african american studies minor: Black Bone Bianca Lynne Spriggs, Jeremy Paden, 2018-02-23 The Appalachian region stretches from Mississippi to New York, encompassing rural areas as well as cities from Birmingham to Pittsburgh. Though Appalachia's people are as diverse as its terrain, few other regions in America are as burdened with stereotypes. Author Frank X Walker coined the term Affrilachia to give identity and voice to people of African descent from this region and to highlight Appalachia's multicultural identity. This act inspired a group of gifted artists, the Affrilachian Poets, to begin working together and using their writing to defy persistent stereotypes of Appalachia as a racially and culturally homogenized region. After years of growth, honors, and accomplishments, the group is acknowledging its silver anniversary with Black Bone. Edited by two newer members of the Affrilachian Poets, Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Jeremy Paden, Black Bone is a beautiful collection of both new and classic work and features submissions from Frank X Walker, Nikky Finney, Gerald Coleman, Crystal Wilkinson, Kelly Norman Ellis, and many others. This illuminating and powerful collection is a testament to a groundbreaking group and its enduring legacy. |
| african american studies minor: Space Unveiled Carla Jackson Bell, 2014-08-01 Since the early 1800s, African Americans have designed signature buildings; however, in the mainstream marketplace, African American architects, especially women, have remained invisible in architecture history, theory and practice. Traditional architecture design studio education has been based on the historical models of the Beaux-Arts and the Bauhaus, with a split between design and production teaching. As the result of current teaching models, African American architects tend to work on the production or technical side of building rather than in the design studio. It is essential to understand the centrality of culture, gender, space and knowledge in design studios. Space Unveiled is a significant contribution to the study of architecture education, and the extent to which it has been sensitive to an inclusive cultural perspective. The research shows that this has not been the case in American education because part of the culture remains hidden. |
| african american studies minor: Introduction to Black Studies Karenga (Maulana.), 1993 |
| african american studies minor: Crossing the Color Line Carina E. Ray, 2015-10-15 Interracial sex mattered to the British colonial state in West Africa. In Crossing the Color Line, Carina E. Ray goes beyond this fact to reveal how Ghanaians shaped and defined these powerfully charged relations. The interplay between African and European perspectives and practices, argues Ray, transformed these relationships into key sites for consolidating colonial rule and for contesting its hierarchies of power. With rigorous methodology and innovative analyses, Ray brings Ghana and Britain into a single analytic frame to show how intimate relations between black men and white women in the metropole became deeply entangled with those between black women and white men in the colony in ways that were profoundly consequential. Based on rich archival evidence and original interviews, the book moves across different registers, shifting from the micropolitics of individual disciplinary cases brought against colonial officers who “kept” local women to transatlantic networks of family, empire, and anticolonial resistance. In this way, Ray cuts to the heart of how interracial sex became a source of colonial anxiety and nationalist agitation during the first half of the twentieth century. |
| african american studies minor: Dreaming the Present Irvin J. Hunt, 2022-02-22 This is a story of art and movement building at the limits of imagination. In their darkest hours, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ella Baker, George Schuyler, and Fannie Lou Hamer gathered hundreds across the United States and beyond to build vast, but forgotten, networks of mutual aid: farms, shops, schools, banks, daycares, homes, health clinics, and burial grounds. They called these spaces cooperatives, local challenges to global capital, where people pooled all they had to meet their needs. By reading their activism as an artistic practice, Irvin Hunt argues that their primary need was to free their movement from the logic of progress. From a remarkably diverse archive, Hunt extrapolates three new ways to describe the time of a movement: a continual beginning, a deliberate falling apart, and a simultaneity, a kind of all-at-once-ness. These temporalities reflect how a people maneuvered the law, reappropriated property, built autonomous communities, and fundamentally reimagined what a movement can be. Their movement was not the dream of a brighter day; it was the making of today out of the stuff of dreams. Hunt offers both an original account of Black mutual aid and, in a world of diminishing futures, a moving meditation on the possibilities of the present. |
| african american studies minor: Workers on Arrival Joe William Trotter, 2021-01-19 An eloquent and essential correction to contemporary discussions of the American working class.—The Nation From the ongoing issues of poverty, health, housing, and employment to the recent upsurge of lethal police-community relations, the black working class stands at the center of perceptions of social and racial conflict today. Journalists and public policy analysts often discuss the black poor as “consumers” rather than “producers,” as “takers” rather than “givers,” and as “liabilities” instead of “assets.” In his engrossing history, Workers on Arrival, Joe William Trotter, Jr., refutes these perceptions by charting the black working class’s vast contributions to the making of America. Covering the last four hundred years since Africans were first brought to Virginia in 1619, Trotter traces the complicated journey of black workers from the transatlantic slave trade to the demise of the industrial order in the twenty-first century. At the center of this compelling, fast-paced narrative are the actual experiences of these African American men and women. A dynamic and vital history of remarkable contributions despite repeated setbacks, Workers on Arrival expands our understanding of America’s economic and industrial growth, its cities, ideas, and institutions, and the real challenges confronting black urban communities today. |
| african american studies minor: Chicago Frederik Byrn Køhlert, 2021-09-30 Chicago occupies a central position in both the geography and literary history of the United States. From its founding in 1833 through to its modern incarnation, the city has served as both a thoroughfare for the nation's goods and a crossroads for its cultural energies. The idea of Chicago as a crossroads of modern America is what guides this literary history, which traces how writers have responded to a rapidly changing urban environment and labored to make sense of its place in - and implications for - the larger whole. In writing that engages with the world's first skyscrapers and elevated railroads, extreme economic and racial inequality, a growing middle class, ethnic and multiethnic neighborhoods, the Great Migration of African Americans, and the city's contemporary incarnation as a cosmopolitan urban center, Chicago has been home to a diverse literature that has both captured and guided the themes of modern America. |
| african american studies minor: The Legend of the Black Mecca Maurice J. Hobson, 2017-10-03 For more than a century, the city of Atlanta has been associated with black achievement in education, business, politics, media, and music, earning it the nickname the black Mecca. Atlanta's long tradition of black education dates back to Reconstruction, and produced an elite that flourished in spite of Jim Crow, rose to leadership during the civil rights movement, and then took power in the 1970s by building a coalition between white progressives, business interests, and black Atlantans. But as Maurice J. Hobson demonstrates, Atlanta's political leadership--from the election of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, through the city's hosting of the 1996 Olympic Games--has consistently mishandled the black poor. Drawn from vivid primary sources and unnerving oral histories of working-class city-dwellers and hip-hop artists from Atlanta's underbelly, Hobson argues that Atlanta's political leadership has governed by bargaining with white business interests to the detriment of ordinary black Atlantans. In telling this history through the prism of the black New South and Atlanta politics, policy, and pop culture, Hobson portrays a striking schism between the black political elite and poor city-dwellers, complicating the long-held view of Atlanta as a mecca for black people. |
| african american studies minor: Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic Melina Pappademos, 2011 Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic |
| african american studies minor: More Auspicious Shores Caree A. Banton, 2019-05-09 Offers a thorough examination of Afro-Barbadian migration to Liberia during the mid- to late nineteenth century. |
| african american studies minor: Extraordinary Bodies Rosemarie Garland Thomson, 2017-03-07 Extraordinary Bodies is a cornerstone text of disability studies, establishing the field upon its publication in 1997. Framing disability as a minority discourse rather than a medical one, the book added depth to oppressive narratives and revealed novel, liberatory ones. Through her incisive readings of such texts as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson exposed the social forces driving representations of disability. She encouraged new ways of looking at texts and their depiction of the body and stretched the limits of what counted as a text, considering freak shows and other pop culture artifacts as reflections of community rites and fears. Garland-Thomson also elevated the status of African-American novels by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Extraordinary Bodies laid the groundwork for an appreciation of disability culture and an inclusive new approach to the study of social marginalization. |
| african american studies minor: Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century John Hope Franklin, August Meier, 1982 Biographical studies of fifteen twentieth-century black leaders. |
| african american studies minor: ROAR Stacy T. Sims, PhD, Selene Yeager, 2016-07-05 “Dr. Sims realizes that female athletes are different than male athletes and you can’t set your race schedule around your monthly cycle. ROAR will help every athlete understand what is happening to her body and what the best nutritional strategy is to perform at her very best.”—Evie Stevens, Olympian, professional road cyclist, and current women’s UCI Hour record holder Women are not small men. Stop eating and training like one. Because most nutrition products and training plans are designed for men, it’s no wonder that so many female athletes struggle to reach their full potential. ROAR is a comprehensive, physiology-based nutrition and training guide specifically designed for active women. This book teaches you everything you need to know to adapt your nutrition, hydration, and training to your unique physiology so you can work with, rather than against, your female physiology. Exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist Stacy T. Sims, PhD, shows you how to be your own biohacker to achieve optimum athletic performance. Complete with goal-specific meal plans and nutrient-packed recipes to optimize body composition, ROAR contains personalized nutrition advice for all stages of training and recovery. Customizable meal plans and strengthening exercises come together in a comprehensive plan to build a rock-solid fitness foundation as you build lean muscle where you need it most, strengthen bone, and boost power and endurance. Because women’s physiology changes over time, entire chapters are devoted to staying strong and active through pregnancy and menopause. No matter what your sport is—running, cycling, field sports, triathlons—this book will empower you with the nutrition and fitness knowledge you need to be in the healthiest, fittest, strongest shape of your life. |
| african american studies minor: Minor Feelings Cathy Park Hong, 2020-03-05 WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2021 FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION 2021 A New York Times Top Book of 2020 Chosen as a Guardian Book of 2020 A BBC Culture Best Books of 2020 Nominated for Good Reads Books of 2020 One of Time's Must-Read Books of 2020 'Unputdownable ... Hong's razor-sharp, provocative prose will linger long after you put Minor Feelings down' - AnOther, Books You Should Read This Year 'A fearless work of creative non-fiction about racism in cultural pursuits by an award-winning poet and essayist' - Asia House 'Brilliant, penetrating and unforgettable, Minor Feelings is what was missing on our shelf of classics ... To read this book is to become more human' - Claudia Rankine author of Citizen 'Hong says the book was 'a dare to herself', and she makes good on it: by writing into the heart of her own discomfort, she emerges with a reckoning destined to be a classic' - Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts What happens when an immigrant believes the lies they're told about their own racial identity? For Cathy Park Hong, they experience the shame and difficulty of minor feelings. The daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up in America steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these minor feelings occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality. With sly humour and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche - and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth. |
| african american studies minor: Black Campus Life Antar A. Tichavakunda, 2021-12-01 An in-depth ethnography of Black engineering students at a historically White institution, Black Campus Life examines the intersection of two crises, up close: the limited number of college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the state of race relations in higher education. Antar Tichavakunda takes readers across campus, from study groups to parties and beyond as these students work hard, have fun, skip class, fundraise, and, at times, find themselves in tense racialized encounters. By consistently centering their perspectives and demonstrating how different campus communities, or social worlds, shape their experiences, Tichavakunda challenges assumptions about not only Black STEM majors but also Black students and the “racial climate” on college campuses more generally. Most fundamentally, Black Campus Life argues that Black collegians are more than the racism they endure. By studying and appreciating the everyday richness and complexity of their experiences, we all—faculty, administrators, parents, policymakers, and the broader public—might learn how to better support them. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org, and access the book online through the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7009 |
| african american studies minor: Keywords for African American Studies Erica R. Edwards, Roderick A. Ferguson, Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, 2018-11-27 Introduces key terms, interdisciplinary research, debates, and histories for African American Studies As the longest-standing interdisciplinary field, African American Studies has laid the foundation for critically analyzing issues of race, ethnicity, and culture within the academy and beyond. This volume assembles the keywords of this field for the first time, exploring not only the history of those categories but their continued relevance in the contemporary moment. Taking up a vast array of issues such as slavery, colonialism, prison expansion, sexuality, gender, feminism, war, and popular culture, Keywords for African American Studies showcases the startling breadth that characterizes the field. Featuring an august group of contributors across the social sciences and the humanities, the keywords assembled within the pages of this volume exemplify the depth and range of scholarly inquiry into Black life in the United States. Connecting lineages of Black knowledge production to contemporary considerations of race, gender, class, and sexuality, Keywords for African American Studies provides a model for how the scholarship of the field can meet the challenges of our social world. |
| african american studies minor: Critical Black Studies Reader Rochelle Brock, Dara Nix-Stevenson, Paul Chamness Miller, 2017 The Critical Black Studies Reader is a ground-breaking volume whose aim is to criticalize and reenvision Black Studies through a critical lens. The book not only stretches the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of issues critical to the Black experience, it creates a theoretical grounding that is intersectional in its approach. Our notion of Black Studies is neither singularly grounded in African American Studies nor on traditional notions of the Black experience. Though situated work in this field has historically grappled with the question of «where are we?» in Black Studies, this volume offers the reader a type of criticalization that has not occurred to this point. While the volume includes seminal works by authors in the field, as a critical endeavor, the editors have also included pieces that address the political issues that intersect with - among others - power, race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, place, and economics. |
| african american studies minor: Researching Black Communities James S. Jackson, Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, Sherrill L Sellers, 2012-09-14 Experts from a range of disciplines offer practical advice for conducting social science research in racial and ethnic minority populations. Readers will learn how to choose appropriate methods—longitudinal studies, national surveys, quantitative analysis, personal interviews, and other qualitative approaches—and how best to employ them for research on specific demographic groups. The volume opens with a brief introduction to the difficulty of defining a population and designing a research program and then moves to illustrative examples drawn from the contributors’ own studies of Blacks in the United States, the Caribbean, and South Africa. Case studies cover research on the media, mental health, churches, work, marital relationships, education, and family roles. |
| african american studies minor: The Purple Decades Tom Wolfe, 1982-10 This collection of Wolfe's essays, articles, and chapters from previous collections is filled with observations on U.S. popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s. |
| african american studies minor: Black Culture Centers Fred L. Hord, 2005 A compilation of essays presenting the conditions and promises of the university for African American faculty and students that is enhanced by the development of Black culture centers in the university community. |
| african american studies minor: Black Intellectual Thought in Modern America Brian D. Behnken, Gregory D. Smithers, Simon Wendt, 2017-09-07 Contributions by Tunde Adeleke, Brian D. Behnken, Minkah Makalani, Benita Roth, Gregory D. Smithers, Simon Wendt, and Danielle L. Wiggins Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black intellectuals have found their work misused, ignored, or discarded. Black intellectuals have also been reductively placed into one or two main categories: they are usually deemed liberal or, less frequently, as conservative. The contributors to this volume explore several prominent intellectuals, from left-leaning leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, from well-known black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States. Contributors also situate the development of the lines of black intellectual thought within the broader history from which these trends emerged. The result gathers essays that offer entry into a host of rich intellectual traditions. |
| african american studies minor: Reading Mennonite Writing Robert Zacharias, 2022-03-15 Mennonite literature has long been viewed as an expression of community identity. However, scholars in Mennonite literary studies have urged a reconsideration of the field’s past and a reconceptualization of its future. This is exactly what Reading Mennonite Writing does. Drawing on the transnational turn in literary studies, Robert Zacharias positions Mennonite literature in North America as “a mode of circulation and reading” rather than an expression of a distinct community. He tests this reframing with a series of methodological experiments that open new avenues of critical engagement with the field’s unique configuration of faith-based intercultural difference. These include cross-sectional readings in nonnarrative literary history; archival readings of transatlantic life writing; Canadian rewritings of Mexican film’s deployment of Mennonite theology as fantasy; an examination of the fetishistic structure of ethnicity as a “thing” that has enabled Mennonite identity to function in a post-identity age; and, finally, a tentative reinvestment in ideals of Mennonite community via the surprising routes of queerness and speculative fiction. In so doing, Zacharias reads Mennonite writing in North America as a useful case study in the shifting position of minor literatures in the wake of the transnational turn. Theoretically sophisticated, this study of minor transnationalism will appeal to specialists in Mennonite literature and to scholars working in the broader field of transnational literary studies. |
| african american studies minor: Introduction to African American Studies Talmadge Anderson, 1993 |
| african american studies minor: African American Studies Nathaniel Norment, 2019 African American Studies: The Discipline and Its Dimensions is a comprehensive resource book that recounts the development of the discipline and provides a basic reference source for sixteen areas of knowledge. |
| african american studies minor: The Psychic Hold of Slavery Soyica Diggs Colbert, Robert J. Patterson, Aida Levy-Hussen, 2016-07-20 What would it mean to “get over slavery”? Is such a thing possible? Is it even desirable? Should we perceive the psychic hold of slavery as a set of mental manacles that hold us back from imagining a postracist America? Or could the psychic hold of slavery be understood as a tool, helping us get a grip on the systemic racial inequalities and restricted liberties that persist in the present day? Featuring original essays from an array of established and emerging scholars in the interdisciplinary field of African American studies, The Psychic Hold of Slavery offers a nuanced dialogue upon these questions. With a painful awareness that our understanding of the past informs our understanding of the present—and vice versa—the contributors place slavery’s historical legacies in conversation with twenty-first-century manifestations of antiblack violence, dehumanization, and social death. Through an exploration of film, drama, fiction, performance art, graphic novels, and philosophical discourse, this volume considers how artists grapple with questions of representation, as they ask whether slavery can ever be accurately depicted, trace the scars that slavery has left on a traumatized body politic, or debate how to best convey that black lives matter. The Psychic Hold of Slavery thus raises provocative questions about how we behold the historically distinct event of African diasporic enslavement and how we might hold off the transhistorical force of antiblack domination. |
| african american studies minor: The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor, 2021-05-11 The National Book Award-winning novel—and contemporary classic—that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor, now with a foreword by Tayari Jones “[A] shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brims with inventiveness—and relevance.” —NPR's Fresh Air In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects—a common prison and a shared home. Naylor renders both loving and painful human experiences with simple eloquence and uncommon intuition in this touching and unforgettable read. |
| african american studies minor: Critical Perspectives on Afro-Latin American Literature Antonio D. Tillis, 2012-04-23 After generations of being rendered virtually invisible by the US academy in critical anthologies and literary histories, writing by Latin Americans of African ancestry has become represented by a booming corpus of intellectual and critical investigation. This volume aims to provide an introduction to the literary worlds and perceptions of national culture and identity of authors from Spanish-America, Brazil, and uniquely, Equatorial Guinea, thus contextually connecting Africa to the history of Spanish colonization. The importance of Latin America literature to the discipline of African Diaspora studies is immeasurable, and this edited collection provides a ripe cultural context for critical comparative analysis among the vast geographies that encompass African and African Diaspora studies. Scholars in the area of African Diaspora Studies, Black Studies, Latin American Studies, and American literature will be able to utilize the eleven essays in this edition to enhance classroom instruction and further academic research. |
| african american studies minor: Becoming Human Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, 2020-05-19 Winner, 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, given by the National Women's Studies Association Winner, 2021 Harry Levin Prize, given by the American Comparative Literature Association Winner, 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies Argues that Blackness disrupts our essential ideas of race, gender, and, ultimately, the human Rewriting the pernicious, enduring relationship between Blackness and animality in the history of Western science and philosophy, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World breaks open the rancorous debate between Black critical theory and posthumanism. Through the cultural terrain of literature by Toni Morrison, Nalo Hopkinson, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler, the art of Wangechi Mutu and Ezrom Legae, and the oratory of Frederick Douglass, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson both critiques and displaces the racial logic that has dominated scientific thought since the Enlightenment. In so doing, Becoming Human demonstrates that the history of racialized gender and maternity, specifically anti-Blackness, is indispensable to future thought on matter, materiality, animality, and posthumanism. Jackson argues that African diasporic cultural production alters the meaning of being human and engages in imaginative practices of world-building against a history of the bestialization and thingification of Blackness—the process of imagining the Black person as an empty vessel, a non-being, an ontological zero—and the violent imposition of colonial myths of racial hierarchy. She creatively responds to the animalization of Blackness by generating alternative frameworks of thought and relationality that not only disrupt the racialization of the human/animal distinction found in Western science and philosophy but also challenge the epistemic and material terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. What emerges is a radically unruly sense of a being, knowing, feeling existence: one that necessarily ruptures the foundations of the human. |
| african american studies minor: Undergraduate Announcement University of Michigan--Dearborn, 1987 |
| african american studies minor: Phenomenology and Psychiatry André J. J. Koning, André J. J. de Koning, Frederick Alexander Jenner, 1982 |
| african american studies minor: Stare in the Darkness Lester K. Spence, 2011 Critiquing the true impact of hip-hop culture on politics. |
| african american studies minor: Harlem Nocturne Farah Jasmine Griffin, 2013-09-10 As World War II raged overseas, Harlem witnessed a battle of its own. Brimming with creative and political energy, the neighborhood's diverse array of artists and activists took advantage of a brief period of progressivism during the war years to launch a bold cultural offensive aimed at winning democracy for all Americans, regardless of race or gender. Ardent believers in America's promise, these men and women helped to lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement before Cold War politics and anti-Communist fervor temporarily froze their dreams at the dawn of the postwar era. In Harlem Nocturne, esteemed scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin tells the stories of three black female artists whose creative and political efforts fueled this historic movement for change: choreographer and dancer Pearl Primus, composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, and novelist Ann Petry. Like many African Americans in the city at the time, these women weren't't native New Yorkers, but the metropolis and its vibrant cultural scene gave them the space to flourish and the freedom to express their political concerns. Pearl Primus performed nightly at the legendary Cafe Society, the first racially integrated club in New York, where she debuted dances of social protest that drew on long-buried African traditions and the dances of former slaves in the South. Williams, meanwhile, was a major figure in the emergence of bebop, collaborating with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell and premiering her groundbreaking Zodiac Suite at the legendary performance space Town Hall. And Ann Petry conveyed the struggles of working-class black women to a national audience with her acclaimed novel The Street, which sold over a million copies -- a first for a female African American author. A rich biography of three artists and the city that inspired them, Harlem Nocturne captures a period of unprecedented vitality and progress for African Americans and women, revealing a cultural movement and a historical moment whose influence endures today. |
| african american studies minor: Afro-Latin American Studies Alejandro de la Fuente, George Reid Andrews, 2018-04-26 Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews offer the first systematic, book-length survey of humanities and social science scholarship on the exciting field of Afro-Latin American studies. Organized by topic, these essays synthesize and present the current state of knowledge on a broad variety of topics, including Afro-Latin American music, religions, literature, art history, political thought, social movements, legal history, environmental history, and ideologies of racial inclusion. This volume connects the region's long history of slavery to the major political, social, cultural, and economic developments of the last two centuries. Written by leading scholars in each of those topics, the volume provides an introduction to the field of Afro-Latin American studies that is not available from any other source and reflects the disciplinary and thematic richness of this emerging field. |
| african american studies minor: Naked Agency Naminata Diabate, 2020-03-06 Across Africa, mature women have for decades mobilized the power of their nakedness in political protest to shame and punish male adversaries. This insurrectionary nakedness, often called genital cursing, owes its cultural potency to the religious belief that spirits residing in women's bodies can be unleashed to cause misfortune in their targets, including impotence, disease, and death. In Naked Agency, Naminata Diabate analyzes these collective female naked protests in Africa and beyond to broaden understandings of agency and vulnerability. Drawing on myriad cultural texts from social media and film to journalism and fiction, Diabate uncovers how women create spaces of resistance during socio-political duress, including such events as the 2011 protests by Ivoirian women in Côte d’Ivoire and Paris as well as women's disrobing in Soweto to prevent the destruction of their homes. Through the concept of naked agency, Diabate explores fluctuating narratives of power and victimhood to challenge simplistic accounts of African women's helplessness and to show how they exercise political power in the biopolitical era. |
| african american studies minor: The Practice of Diaspora Brent Hayes EDWARDS, Brent Hayes Edwards, 2009-06-30 Edwards revisits black transnational culture in the 1920s and 1930s, paying particular attention to links between the intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance and their Francophone counterparts in Paris. He suggests that diaspora is less a historical condition than a set of practices through which black intellectuals pursue international alliances. |
| african american studies minor: The Long Emancipation Rinaldo Walcott, 2021-04-16 Rinaldo Walcott posits that Black people globally live in the time of emancipation and that emancipation is definitely not freedom, showing that wherever Black people have been emancipated from slavery and colonization, a potential freedom became thwarted. |
| african american studies minor: Techno-Orientalism David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, Greta A. Niu, 2015-04-17 What will the future look like? To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, from Blade Runner to Cloud Atlas, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism investigates the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in literary, cinematic, and new media representations, while critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive, in dire need of Western consciousness-raising. The collection’s fourteen original essays trace the discourse of techno-orientalism across a wide array of media, from radio serials to cyberpunk novels, from Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu to Firefly. Applying a variety of theoretical, historical, and interpretive approaches, the contributors consider techno-orientalism a truly global phenomenon. In part, they tackle the key question of how these stereotypes serve to both express and assuage Western anxieties about Asia’s growing cultural influence and economic dominance. Yet the book also examines artists who have appropriated techno-orientalist tropes in order to critique racist and imperialist attitudes. Techno-Orientalism is the first collection to define and critically analyze a phenomenon that pervades both science fiction and real-world news coverage of Asia. With essays on subjects ranging from wartime rhetoric of race and technology to science fiction by contemporary Asian American writers to the cultural implications of Korean gamers, this volume offers innovative perspectives and broadens conventional discussions in Asian American Cultural studies. |
| african american studies minor: South of Pico Kellie Jones, 2017-04-07 Named a Best Art Book of 2017 by the New York Times and Artforum In South of Pico Kellie Jones explores how the artists in Los Angeles's black communities during the 1960s and 1970s created a vibrant, productive, and engaged activist arts scene in the face of structural racism. Emphasizing the importance of African American migration, as well as L.A.'s housing and employment politics, Jones shows how the work of black Angeleno artists such as Betye Saar, Charles White, Noah Purifoy, and Senga Nengudi spoke to the dislocation of migration, L.A.'s urban renewal, and restrictions on black mobility. Jones characterizes their works as modern migration narratives that look to the past to consider real and imagined futures. She also attends to these artists' relationships with gallery and museum culture and the establishment of black-owned arts spaces. With South of Pico, Jones expands the understanding of the histories of black arts and creativity in Los Angeles and beyond. |
| african american studies minor: The Afrocentric Paradigm Ama Mazama, 2003 |
Africa - Wikipedia
African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa. Africa is highly biodiverse; [17] it is the continent with the largest number of …
Africa | History, People, Countries, Regions, Map, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · African regions are treated under the titles Central Africa, eastern Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and western Africa; these articles also contain the principal treatment …
Map of Africa | List of African Countries Alphabetically - World Maps
Africa is the second largest and most populous continent in the world after Asia. The area of Africa without islands is 11.3 million square miles (29.2 million sq km), with islands - about …
The 54 Countries in Africa in Alphabetical Order
May 14, 2025 · Here is the alphabetical list of the African country names with their capitals. We have also included the countries’ regions, the international standard for country codes (ISO …
Africa - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars , …
Africa: Countries and Sub-Saharan Africa - HISTORY
African History Africa is a large and diverse continent that extends from South Africa northward to the Mediterranean Sea. The continent makes up one-fifth of the total land surface of Earth.
Africa Map: Regions, Geography, Facts & Figures | Infoplease
What Are the Big 3 African Countries? Three of the largest and most influential countries in Africa are Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with a …
Africa - New World Encyclopedia
Since the end of colonial status, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics …
Africa Map / Map of Africa - Worldatlas.com
Africa, the planet's 2nd largest continent and the second most-populous continent (after Asia) includes (54) individual countries, and Western Sahara, a member state of the African Union …
Africa: Human Geography - Education
Jun 4, 2025 · Cultural Geography Historic Cultures The African continent has a unique place in human history. Widely believed to be the “cradle of humankind,” Africa is the only continent …
Africa - Wikipedia
African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa. Africa is highly biodiverse; [17] it is the continent with the largest number of …
Africa | History, People, Countries, Regions, Map, & Facts
5 days ago · African regions are treated under the titles Central Africa, eastern Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and western Africa; these articles also contain the principal treatment …
Map of Africa | List of African Countries Alphabetically - World Maps
Africa is the second largest and most populous continent in the world after Asia. The area of Africa without islands is 11.3 million square miles (29.2 million sq km), with islands - about 11.7 …
The 54 Countries in Africa in Alphabetical Order
May 14, 2025 · Here is the alphabetical list of the African country names with their capitals. We have also included the countries’ regions, the international standard for country codes (ISO …
Africa - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars , …
Africa: Countries and Sub-Saharan Africa - HISTORY
African History Africa is a large and diverse continent that extends from South Africa northward to the Mediterranean Sea. The continent makes up one-fifth of the total land surface of Earth.
Africa Map: Regions, Geography, Facts & Figures | Infoplease
What Are the Big 3 African Countries? Three of the largest and most influential countries in Africa are Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with a …
Africa - New World Encyclopedia
Since the end of colonial status, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics …
Africa Map / Map of Africa - Worldatlas.com
Africa, the planet's 2nd largest continent and the second most-populous continent (after Asia) includes (54) individual countries, and Western Sahara, a member state of the African Union …
Africa: Human Geography - Education
Jun 4, 2025 · Cultural Geography Historic Cultures The African continent has a unique place in human history. Widely believed to be the “cradle of humankind,” Africa is the only continent …
