Africana Studies
The Africana Studies Program at É«É«Ñо¿Ëù is part of a Tri-College collaboration with Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. We look at the histories, politics, intellectual heritage, and cultural traditions of Black people around the world, with an emphasis on the Americas and the Caribbean.
Africana Studies explores how racial blackness and its entangled categories, (gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.), structure the development of the modern world. We focus on the contributions of Black women and Black queer and trans folks, who have been and remain at the forefront of Black liberation movements.
The Minor in Africana Studies at É«É«Ñо¿Ëù trains students to think critically, write analytically, and engage with expansive methodological frameworks. Our work is grounded in the study and value of Black Queer Feminisms in their many forms and settings.
Courses of Study
The Tri-Co Africana Studies program offers a minor. If you're interested in designing an independent major, we would be excited to work with you to achieve your goals.
Angelique M. Lee '27“AFST has directly impacted my intellectual trajectory by expanding how I view the intersections between race and gender, history and imagination."
Course Highlights
AFST B202 Black Queer Diaspora
This interdisciplinary course explores over two decades of work produced by and about Black Queer Diasporic communities throughout the circum-Atlantic world. While providing an introduction to various artists and intellectuals of the Black Queer Diaspora, this course examines the viability of Black Queer Diaspora world-making praxis as a form of theorizing. We will interrogate the transnational and transcultural mobility of specific Black Queer Diasporic forms of peacemaking, erotic knowledge productions, as well as the concept of "aesthetics" more broadly. Our aim is to use the prism of Blackness/Queerness/Diaspora to highlight the dynamic relationship between Black Diaspora Studies and Queer Studies. By the end of this course students will have a strong understanding of how systems of power work to restrict the freedoms of Black Queer and Trans communities, and how Black LGBTQ people have lived, organized, and created in spite of and in response to these oppressions. This interdisciplinary undergraduate upper-level course will utilize academic texts accompanied by poetry, fiction, film, television, and visual art to understand Black Queer and Trans subjectivities.
AFST B204 #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere
#BlackLivesMatterEverywhere: Ethnographies & Theories on the African Diaspora is a interdisciplinary course that closely examines political, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual mobilizations for Black Lives on local, global and hemispheric levels. We will engage an array of materials ranging from literature, history, oral histories, folklore, dance, music, popular culture, social media, ethnography, and film/documentaries. By centering the political and intellectual labor of Black women and LGBTQ folks at the forefront of the movements for Black Lives, we unapologetically excavate how #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere has a long and rich genealogy in the African diaspora. Lastly, students will be immersed in Black queer feminist theorizations on diaspora, political movements, and the multiplicities of Blackness.
ENGL B247 Introduction to 20th Century African American Literature
This survey course is an introduction to some of the major authors, canonical texts, and defining critical debates of 20th century African American literature. The course will revolve around close-reading and (written) interpretation within (and beyond) the historical and literary context of the works in question. Readings include novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and essays from across the 20th century. Selected authors will include Angelina Grimké, Nella Larsen, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and Jewelle Gomez. The course is open to all and assumes no prior knowledge of African American literature.
360° Programs in Africana Studies
The 360° Program invites you to take a cluster of classes from different fields looking at a single topic. Here are some of the previous clusters featuring Africana Studies:
360°: Paradigms of Revival
In a fundamentally decolonial spirit, this course cluster examines the ways colonialism has contained, collected, captured, and commodified Blackness, a practice that circulates objectified images of the peoples, cultures, and cultural objects of Africa and the African Diaspora.
Faculty Spotlight
Paul Joseph López Oro
Assistant Professor and Director of Africana Studies
Paul Joseph López Oro is a native son of Brooklyn, NY by way of the Caribbean Coast of Honduras. He trained as a transdisciplinary Black Studies scholar in the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the Department of Black Studies at Northwestern University. His research and teaching focuses on Black Latin American political thought and U.S. racial politics on Black Latinidades.
A Bright Future
How É«É«Ñо¿Ëù grads are lighting their paths
Opportunities in Africana Studies
Research
As an Africana studies student, you have the opportunity to participate in research with professors, the library and Special Collections.
Internship
We encourage you to take on internships that advance your specific interests in Africana studies. Recent students have interned with the Dallas Wings, the Kenyan Scholar Access Program, and Laɣim Tehi Tuma.
Study Abroad
We encourage you to expand your world view by studying abroad. You have the opportunity to study abroad during your junior year, or to participate in a study trip as part of the 360° program.
Black at É«É«Ñо¿Ëù
Black at É«É«Ñо¿Ëù is a collaborative project started by É«É«Ñо¿Ëù students Emma Kioko ’15 and Grace Pusey ’15 in the Fall of 2014. The purpose is to build institutional memory of the College’s engagement with race and racism, enabling future students to hold both themselves and the College community to higher standards of awareness and accountability to racial power dynamics inside and outside of the classroom. It explores the experiences of Black students, faculty, and staff at the College from its founding in 1885 to the present day.
Humanities News
Africana Studies is part of the larger humanities discipline at É«É«Ñо¿Ëù. Check out what's new:
Contact Us
Africana Studies
Paul Joseph López Oro
Director of Africana Studies
Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies
Old Library 213
Phone: 610-526-5544
plopezoro@brynmawr.edu