Crossroads Cohort: Black Studies Bootcamp

Catalog description

This course will serve as an introduction to the history and contemporary scholarly landscape of Africana Studies as its own interdisciplinary intellectual enterprise with a distinct history and scholarly legacy and underpinned by unique critical and methodological approaches. It is designed for students who are prepared for graduate-level study but who may not have had the opportunity to take Black studies coursework as undergraduates and to expand the depth and breadth of knowledge for students who do have formal Black studies training by through more critical engagement with foundational texts and current work by contemporary thinkers. Africana studies embraces interdisciplinary methodologies for the study of Africa and its diasporas across the globe, as well as for the critical study of race and anti-Black racism. It centers Blackness and the critical study of race, amplifying the significance of Black history, the beauty of Black creativity, the power of Black resistance, the commitment to Black freedom, and the insight of Black critical perspectives. While the study of Black people will be centered in this course, students will become familiar with the ways that interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transnational grounding of Africana Studies provides frameworks to make sense of all of humanity.