BA in African American & African Studies

The African American & African Studies (AAAS) undergraduate major prepares students for a wide range of academic and professional fields relevant to public, private, and civil-society sector careers. Designed to provide curriculum that includes broad humanistic traditions in culture, arts and literature, history and historiography, and extensive social and behavioral theoretical foundations as intrinsic components of the study of Africa and the African diaspora, the AAAS major aims to provide its graduates interdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and competencies.

Combined with language training and learning abroad opportunities, AAAS is a unique and highly relevant undergraduate major program fostered through well-designed courses, and by engaging students inside and outside the classroom.

The major prepares you:

  • To understand and meaningfully engage with the experiences, histories, and realities of African American life.
  • To gain awareness of the historical, political, social, and economic realities that shape African societies today.
  • To examine the transnational social and cultural networks stemming out of the migrations of African peoples on a global scale.
  • To appreciate the artistic and cultural contributions of African peoples to world cultures and civilizations.
  • To explore the underlying tensions and larger conflicts experienced by peoples of African descent in racially and ethnically unequal societies.
  • To appreciate the social-political movements born out of the struggles of African-descended people against historical injustices, oppression, and dispossession (the Civil Rights, Black Power, Pan-Africanist movements, etc.).
Full Requirements