Undergraduate Major
Overview
The undergraduate major in African American and African Studies is designed to provide students with a solid disciplinary understanding of African American and African Studies and critical interdisciplinary scholarship.
The major features three distinctive areas of curricular emphasis:
- Arts, Aesthetics, and Expressive Culture focuses on the forms, frames, theories, and traditions of African American and African diasporic artistic and cultural productions;
- Ethics, Politics, and Society focuses on the normative, ideological, and institutional dimensions that form and inform experiences and expressions of individual and collective life of African Americans and of people of African descent in the diaspora; and
- History, Culture, and Theory focuses on the intellectual, material and theoretical expressions and (self) representations of the experiences of people of African descent in the United States and in the diaspora across space and time.
This curricular feature offers students the opportunity to develop distinct competence in a particular area of concentration in African American Studies.
The African American and African Studies Atelier is the capstone experience for African American and African Studies majors. The Atelier enables African American and African Studies majors to develop a significant capstone project. The Atelier brings together students, faculty, artists, writers, and activists to create new knowledge grounded in the critical and comprehensive study of African and African diasporic peoples, cultures, and ideas across space and time. The Atelier is also a space for faculty to rethink their conception and approach to their research and teaching in a unique space underwritten by an ethics of community, creativity, and collaboration.
African American Studies, B.A. Requirements
Requires a minimum of 30 hours in the major.
Core Courses (12 Credits)
| Core Courses | 12 | |
| AAS 100 | Introduction to African American and African Studies (3) | |
| AAS 200 | Theories and Methods in African American and African Studies (3) | |
| One course which substantially engages slavery and race in the making of the modern world | ||
| AAS 399 | African American and African Studies Atelier (3) | |
| Select at least three courses from among any of the following areas (at the 200 or 300 level): | 9 | |
| I. Arts, Aesthetics, and Expressive Culture | ||
| II. Ethics, Politics, and Society | ||
| III. History, Culture, and Theory | ||
| Select nine hours of electives | 9 | |
I. Arts, Aesthetics, and Expressive Culture
| AAS 206 | Introduction to Hip Hop | 3 |
| AAS 207 | Black Popular Culture | 3 |
| AAS 220 | African American Cultural Criticism | 3 |
| AAS 235 | Black Cinema | 3 |
| AAS 370 | Special Topics in Arts, Aesthetics, and Expressive Cultures in African American and African Studies | 3 |
| AAS 294 | Black Art in the US and Great Britain since 1945 | 3 |
| ART 104 | Topics in World Art (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| DCE 122 | Special Topics in Dance (when topic is African dance) | 1-3 |
| ENG 301 | Individual Authors (when topic is Toni Morrison) | 3 |
| ENG 302 | Ideas in Literature (when topic is Black is Beautiful: African American Poetics and Aesthetics 1919-2019) | 3 |
| ENG 356 | Literature of the Caribbean | 3 |
| ENG 381 | Studies in African-American Literature (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| ENG 387 | African-American Fiction (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| ENG 389 | African-American Poetry | 3 |
| FRH 361 | Special Topics in French and Francophone Film Studies (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| MSC 101 | Introduction to the Music of World Cultures | 3 |
| REL 376 | Race, Religion, and Film | 3 |
| THE 376 | Multicultural American Drama | 3 |
II. Ethics, Politics, and Society
| AAS 115 | Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement | 3 |
| AAS 190 | Mixed Race Studies | 3 |
| AAS 202 | Policing, Politics, and Prison | 3 |
| AAS 273 | Race and the City | 3 |
| AAS 274 | Black Business and Economics | 3 |
| AAS 285 | Women and Work in the U.S | 3 |
| AAS 310 | Organic Leadership: Lessons from the Black Freedom Struggle | 3 |
| AAS 330 | Politics of Black Religion | 3 |
| AAS 340 | Ethics of Black Power | 3 |
| AAS 350 | Politics of Black Liberation | 3 |
| AAS 380 | Special Topics in Ethics, Politics, and Society in African American and African Studies | 3 |
| AAS 393 | Black Family Matters | 3 |
| ANT 335 | Anthropology of Space and Place in the U.S. | 3,4 |
| POL 213 | Economic Inequality and American Politics | 3 |
| POL 223 | African American Politics | 3 |
| POL 226 | American Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Liberties | 3 |
| POL 242 | Topics in Comparative Politics (when topic is appropriate) | 1-3 |
| POL 252 | Topics in International Politics (when topic is appropriate) | 1-3 |
| POL 257 | Politics of International Development | 3 |
| POL 274 | Arab and Islamic Political Thought | 3 |
| REL 246 | Religion and Race | 3 |
| REL 338 | Religion, Ethics, and Politics | 3 |
| REL 339 | Religion, Power, and Society in Modern Africa | 3 |
| REL 374 | Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms | 3 |
| REL 375 | Race, Myth, and the American Imagination | 3 |
| SOC 364 | Power, Politics, and Protest | 3 |
| SOC 384 | Special Topics Seminar in Crime and Criminal Justice (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| WGS 364 | Women of Color, Feminisms, and the Politics of Resistance in the U.S. | 3 |
| WGS 383 | Race, Gender, and the Courts | 3 |
III. History, Culture, and Theory
| AAS 110 | Introduction to Africana Philosophy | 3 |
| AAS 120 | Introduction to Black Women’s Studies | 3 |
| AAS 140 | Introduction to Black Religion | 3 |
| AAS 205 | Black Cultural Studies | 3 |
| AAS 210 | African American Intellectual Traditions | 3 |
| AAS 240 | Black Theology and Black Power | 3 |
| AAS 300 | Black Feminist Theory | 3 |
| AAS 315 | African American Social and Political Thought | 3 |
| AAS 320 | Philosophy and Race | 3 |
| AAS 322 | Critical Theories of Race | 3 |
| AAS 324 | Race and the Modern World | 3 |
| AAS 355 | Africana Political Philosophy | 3 |
| AAS 387 | Black Radical Tradition | 3 |
| AAS 391 | Themes in Africana Philosophy | 3 |
| AAS 392 | Seminar in African American Studies | 3 |
| AAS 396 | Independent Study in African American and African Studies | 1-3 |
| AAS 397 | Directed Reading in African American and African Studies | 1-3 |
| ANT 325 | Roots of Racism: Race and Ethnic Diversity in the U.S. | 3 |
| ANT 370 | Origins to Empires: The Archaeology of Africa and Eurasia | 3 |
| ENG 387 | African-American Fiction (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| FRH 216 | Studies in French and Francophone Literature and Culture (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| FRT 210 | French-Language Literature in Translation (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| HMN 200 | Introduction to Humanities: Themes in Literature, Culture, and Film | 3 |
| HST 105 | Africa in World History | 3 |
| HST 110 | Atlantic World since 1500 | 3 |
| HST 266 | The History of the Slave South | 3 |
| HST 268 | African History to 1870 | 3 |
| HST 269 | African History since 1850 | 3 |
| HST 271 | African American History to 1870 | 3 |
| HST 272 | African American History since 1870 | 3 |
| HST 336 | Gender and Power in African History | 3 |
| HST 340 | Urban Africa | 3 |
| HST 341 | Africans in the Atlantic World, 1750-1815 | 3 |
| HST 375 | Black Lives | 3 |
| HST 376 | Civil Rights and Black Consciousness Movements | 3 |
| HST 378 | Race, Memory, and Identity | 3 |
| REL 107 | Introduction to African Religions | 3 |
| REL 110 | Introduction to Islamic Traditions (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| REL 345 | Religion and the Making of Black America | 3 |
| REL 362 | Topics in Islam (when topic is appropriate) | 3 |
| REL 373 | Special Topics in African-American Religious Traditions | 3 |
| REL 393 | Topics in Religions of Africa | 3 |
| SOC 359 | Race and Racism | 3 |
| WGS 322 | Feminist, Womanist, Murjerista Theologies: Constructive Perspectives on Christian Thought | 3 |
Fall 2026 Courses
Take a look at our Fall 2026 undergraduate courses.