Africana Studies, MA

The Department of Africana Studies (AFS) in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) offers a program of interdisciplinary studies leading to a Master of Arts or a Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies. Our graduate program is for anyone who wants to have a more profound understanding of the contemporary globalized world. The MA in Africana Studies is intended to develop an understanding of the experiences of people of African descent in all regions of the globe and across time. This unique program presents approaches and knowledges radically and fundamentally different from those encountered in traditional disciplines, by applying the symbolic potential of Africa and African ideas and ways of being and thinking as a prism for enhancing human understanding and knowledge. In so doing, the MA and Graduate Certificate (GC) meet the need for academic inquiry and excellence at the graduate level spanning the experiences, history and perspectives of African heritage peoples (United States, Caribbean/Latin America, Africa) and enhance professional development in a range of careers and professions where knowledge and increased understanding of Black communities past and present are important. Included among these areas are education, law, management, medicine, public health, public service, social welfare, museum curatorship, cinema studies and teaching.Our graduate programs also increases marketability in a range of traditional doctoral programs including Cultural Studies,  English, History, Philosophy, Social Welfare, Sociology, and others.

The graduate program in Africana Studies offers a broad inquiry into the ideas and experiences of African peoples in the Americas, the continent of Africa, and elsewhere around the globe. The focus of the program is interdisciplinary, organized around a comparative perspective of the African Diaspora.   Emphasis is placed on the intersection between African, the Caribbean-Latin American, and African American experiences. Students will examine the Diaspora with particular attention focused on African American, Caribbean-Latin American, and continental African cultures, histories, literatures, political systems, religions, and economies in the overlapping context of developing African communities initially linked by the waterways of the Atlantic.

MA students pursuing MAT and MLS degrees in academic and professional programs outside of Africana Studies may gain approval from their academic units if seeking to designate Africana courses as a cognate area.