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Africana Studies

Africana studies at DePauw challenges students to explore issues of race, difference, identity, and subject formation and to understand the collective experience of black people in today’s world.

Students use a multidisciplinary approach to explore the multiple and shifting historical, cultural, social and political meanings of blackness with a focus on the Diasporan societies, cultures and people of the United States, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Students learn to challenge traditional ways of thinking about difference, gain a critical consciousness about global relations and the roles blacks play in these relations, and understand how a knowledge of the black experience will enhance their engagement with contemporary social, cultural and political issues. The program pre- pares students for world citizenship and adds an intercultural dimension to their growing store of knowledge.

Sample Courses:

Black Lives Matter; Harlem Renaissance; American Government: Race, Power, and Privilege; Caribbean Religion and Cultures; Jazz History; Race Politics, and Readings in the Black Diaspora.