M. Nicole Horsley
Associate Professor and Coordinator
About the Minor
The African Diaspora Studies Minor examines the experiences, cultural formations, and freedom struggles of people of African descent across the globe—including sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. This minor is grounded in a globalized notion of Blackness and diaspora as both a lived history and a framework of community, creativity, and resistance.
Students completing the minor will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge of major historical and sociopolitical developments in the African diaspora.
- Interpret the relationships among race, power, and resistance across time and place.
- Critically analyze cultural texts and social issues using theories, frameworks, and methods from Black Studies.
- Examine how Blackness intersects with other social categories such as gender, class, sexuality, religion, and nation.
- Articulate an understanding of diasporic identity, creativity, and the pursuit of liberation and social justice.
Why Minor in African Diaspora Studies?
We are living through the intensification of racial violence, ecological crisis, and global inequality—and yet, we are also witnessing vibrant movements for Black liberation, pleasure, and planetary justice.
A minor in African Diaspora Studies offers:
- Historical depth and contemporary relevance
- Critical frameworks to navigate race, power, and identity in global contexts
- Creative and interdisciplinary approaches to protest, pleasure, and world-building
Whether you’re planning a career in public health, law, education, politics, business, the arts, or technology , this minor enhances your ability to think with complexity, communicate with empathy, and act with purpose.
What You’ll Study (Program Requirements)
Total credits required: 20
Foundational Courses (8 credits):
- CSCR 10600: Introduction to African Diaspora Studies
- CSCR 12300: Introduction to Culture, Race & Ethnicity Concepts
Electives (12 credits):
- 12 credits of electives with the African-Diaspora Studies Elective attribute (ADSE)
- At least 4 of these credits must be CSCR-designated
- At least 4 credits must be at the 300-level or above
Note: For students majoring in Race, Power, and Resistance , CSCR 10600 and CSCR 12300 may count for both the major and the minor. However, the remaining 12 elective credits cannot overlap with courses counted toward the major.
Sample Pathways Through the Minor
You can shape your African Diaspora Studies minor around themes that resonate with your academic interests and career goals. Sample clusters include:
- Film, Media & Storytelling
- Health, Embodiment & Social Justice
- Black Performance & Creative Practice
- Technology, Imagination & Futures
- Education, Youth & Resistance
- Race, Ecologies & Planetary Justice
- Afro-Asian, Latinx & Indigenous Intimacies
- Diaspora, Business & International Markets
- Art, Archives & Collective Memory
This minor is a space to pose urgent questions and explore complex answers. What histories haunt the present? What practices sustain joy and survival? What futures are possible? We encourage students to think expansively. What questions move you? What futures are you imagining? This minor is a space to ask urgent questions—and to find unexpected answers.