African American Studies

A new vocabulary for African American Studies As the longest-standing interdisciplinary field, African American Studies has laid the foundation for critically analyzing issues of race, ethnicity, and culture within the academy and beyond. This volume assembles the keywords of this field for the first time, exploring not only the history of those categories but their continued relevance in the contemporary moment. Taking up a vast array of issues such as slavery, colonialism, prison expansion, sexuality, gender, feminism, war, and popular culture, Keywords for African American Studies showcases the startling breadth that characterizes the field. Featuring an august group of contributors across the social sciences and the humanities, the keywords assembled within the pages of this volume exemplify the depth and range of scholarly inquiry into Black life in the United States. Connecting lineages of Black knowledge production to contemporary considerations of race, gender, class, and sexuality, Keywords for African American Studies provides a model for how the scholarship of the field can meet the challenges of our social world.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether African American Studies is a discipline, or multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary field. Some scholars assert that African American Studies use a well-defined common approach in examining history, politics, and the family in the same way as scholars in the disciplines of economics, sociology, and political science. Other scholars consider African American Studies multidisciplinary, a field somewhat comparable to the field of education in which scholars employ a variety of disciplinary lenses-be they anthropological, psychological, historical, etc., --to study the African world experience. In this model the boundaries between traditional disciplines are accepted, and researches in African American Studies simply conduct discipline based an analysis of particular topics. Finally, another group of scholars insists that African American Studies is interdisciplinary, an enterprise that generates distinctive analyses by combining perspectives from d

This book presents the diverse, expansive nature of African American Studies and its characteristic interdisciplinarity. It is intended for use with undergraduate/ beginning graduate students in African American Studies, American Studies and Ethnic Studie

A Companion to African-American Studies is an exciting andcomprehensive re-appraisal of the history and future of AfricanAmerican studies. Contains original essays by expert contributors in the field ofAfrican-American Studies Creates a groundbreaking re-appraisal of the history and futureof the field Includes a series of reflections from those who establishedAfrican American Studies as a bona fide academic discipline Captures the dynamic interaction of African American Studieswith other fields of inquiry.

African-American Studies remains one of the more controversial disciplines in the courses of academic pursuit today. In part, much of the controversy emanates from an inability of practitioners to agree upon any rigid definition of just what constitutes and just what is encompassed within the field. At least, there is some agreement that its achievement of institutional acceptance with separate programs, departments, and granting of advanced degrees warrants its treatment as a legitimate field of pursuit in and of itself--but indeed, this is where the agreement ends. On a range of topics, scholars in the field of African-American Studies hold decidedly different opinions. What ought we to include as African-American Studies? Is Afrocentricity a figment of the imagination or sound scientific enquiry? And what place if any does race and racism continue to play in the life changes of African-Americans? Bi-racialism, underclassness, intra-community crime and Afro-Jewish relations are also prominent subjects of consideration. In Leading Issues in African-American Studies, BaNikongo has brought together scholars from every associated field of African-American Studies and offers a range of perspective on a myriad of topics. The text presents differing viewpoints on political, social, economic, cultural and legal issues and succeeds in addressing every major contemporary area of debate in African-American academic circles.

In this ground-breaking book, Stephen C. Ferguson addresses a seminal question that is too-often ignored: What should be the philosophical basis for African American studies? The volume explores philosophical issues and problems in their relationship to Black studies. Ferguson shows that philosophy is not a sterile intellectual pursuit, but a critical tool to gathering knowledge about the Black experience. Cultural idealism in various forms has become enormously influential as a framework for Black studies. Ferguson takes on the task of demonstrating how a Marxist philosophical perspective offers a productive and fruitful way of overcoming the limitations of idealism. Focusing on the hugely popular Afrocentric school of thought, this book’s engaging discussion shows that the foundational arguments of cultural idealism are based on a series of analytical and historical misapprehensions. In turn, Ferguson argues for the centrality of the Black working class—both men and women—to Black Studies.

African American Studies: 50 Years at the University of Florida provides an impactful overview of African American Studies; documents the research of Black faculty at UF; examines how African American Studies encourages community engagement and service; contains testimonies from community elders; and includes reflections by and about prominent UF alumni such as Judge Stephan Mickle and Dr. David Horne.

Examines the full range of humanities and social science scholarship on people of African descent in Latin America.