Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies

African Diaspora Studies

Sean Eversley Bradwell, Assistant Professor and Coordinator

African Diaspora Studies Minor

The courses in the African diaspora studies minor cover a broad range of issues, from the historically constructed and contested nature of individual identities to issues of cultural and historical representation and social justice for groups of people.

Specifically, the minor's goals are to encourage, allow, and facilitate

  1. a study of the self in relationship to the "other" by investigating particular areas of racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity as well as the nature of encounters between diverse groups of people. (The focus of many of the courses is on social movements, diasporas, migrations, and a questioning of borders or boundaries, identities, and representations.)
  2. the use of historical and comparative methodologies for providing a contextual understanding of the issues being studied.
  3. a creative combination of epistemological or theoretical concerns with an analysis of real-life problems so that theory can serve as an entry point into praxis. This is necessary for understanding that ideas shape practices and that practices, in turn, reframe our ideas about the world.
  4. a critical approach to issues of representation and identity, and, for those so motivated, an opening to construct theories of ethnic, cultural, or racial encounters.
  5. an interrogation of notions of location and place. While the minor focuses on the experiences of African Americans, it will also call into question the inside/outside binary (e.g., the United States versus groups that are geographically outside the United States or that are geographically within the United States but excluded from the dominant discourse). In other words, the minor will allow students to study the United States within various global contexts. This is necessary for understanding the interconnected nature of contemporary social life.

Requirements for the Minor in African Diaspora Studies

Required courses

CSCR 10600 Introduction to African Diaspora Studies  3
CSCR 12300 Introduction to Culture, Race and Ethnicity Concepts  3

Electives

Policy and Praxis

Select 3 credits from the following:

CSCR 43300 Education, Oppression, Liberation  3
HPS 20500 Critical Health Issues  3
CSCR 35200 Punishment, Prisons and Democracy  3
Culture and History

Select one of the following courses:

CSCR 25000 Hip-Hop Cultures  3
HIST 20900 Ethnic United States since the Civil War  3
HIST 37100 Slavery and the Union  3
ENGL 47000 Seminar1  3
MUNM 25600 Bessie Smith to MTV  3
MUNM 25900 African American Music  3
CSCR 26100 Watching Race in American Media  3
Power and Liberation

Select one of the following courses:

CSCR 32400 Critical Race Theories  3
POLT 14100 Power: Sex, Class, and Race  3
POLT 34200 Liberalism and Marxism  3
POLT 40100 Seminar: Comparative and International Studies1  3
CSCR 35100 Race and Sexual Politics  3
Comparative and International

Select one of the following courses:

ANTH 39000 Africa  3
POLT 34001 Selected Topics1  3
POLT 34004 Music of the African Diaspora  3
POLT 40200 Seminar1  3
CSCR 30700 Race and Colonialism  3
CSCR 43400 Capstone Seminar in Culture, Race and Ethnicity2  3
Total, African diaspora studies minor 18

1 Students should check with the director of the program for a list of approved seminars.

2 This course will be designated to the appropriate electives category depending on the topic of the course.