African American Studies

African American Studies is an intellectual field of inquiry that examines the history of people of African descent from the colonial period through the present. Other topics that are examined include: -how systems of racial inequality are produced through state policy; -traditional western scholarly disciplines and popular discourse; and -the social, political, and cultural movements that Black people have developed to identify and resist the unequal material and political conditions that shape Black social life in the African Diaspora. The undergraduate major and minor provide a strong foundation in the key theoretical concepts in the discipline and the historical formation of African American Studies as an interdisciplinary field of study and prepare students to apply what they have learned in the classroom through independent research and in internships with social justice and service organizations.