Overview

The African American Studies programme of Northwestern University studies the global black experience. Grounded in an array of disciplinary methods the field offers new insights on the human condition. Through the use of empirical evidence, diverse methodologies and intellectual approaches this field boasts a rigorous engagement with communities of African descent in the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe, among others. Necessarily, this involves a deepening understanding of local, national, transnational, diasporic, and global dynamics, their histories and intersections.

Major themes in the curriculum include:

• the nature of colonization and its impact on the colonizer and the colonized

• the advent, implications, and legacies of trans-Atlantic slavery

• racism and its effects on society as well as on scholarship

• the makings and conceptualizations of the black diaspora

• the importance of oral language, history, and tradition in the black experience

• the roots and development of black music, literature, and religious styles

• black politics and social movements, and black radicalism

• the analysis of key institutions and topics such as the family, gender and class relations, and sexuality.

Career paths