Introduction To African American Studies

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

Introduction to African American Studies: A Reader chronicles the experience of African Americans in the United States from their first arrival in 1619 to present day. The reader demonstrates how African Americans and their experiences have shaped America's historical, political, economic, and cultural history, as well as how the black experience continues to influence American life. In Part I, students read about the continued significance of race in America and receive a primer on Africana studies. Part II examines the arrival of Africans to America, the Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery and states' rights in the early republic, and the issue of democracy in Jeffersonian America. Part III contains readings about Jim Crow, the roots of Plessy vs. Ferguson, and the Niagara Movement. In Part IV, students learn about the impact of African American artists on literature, arts, and culture from 1927 - 1940. Part V includes readings on the Civil Rights Movement. The final part speaks to post-racial America in the age of Barack Obama. Gathering thought-provoking and critical literature, Introduction to African American Studies is an ideal resource for foundational courses within the discipline. Stephen Balkaran is an instructor of African American studies at Central Connecticut State University, where he initiated, developed, and coordinated a Civil Rights Project (2006 - present). He previously served as an instructor of political science at Quinnipiac University, the University of Connecticut-TRI Campus, Post University, and Capital Community College. Before launching his academic career, Mr. Balkaran worked for the African National Congress (Nelson Mandela's ruling party in South Africa) in partnership with the University of Connecticut. His educational background spans from the Presentation College in Trinidad, the University of Connecticut, and Quinnipiac University School of Law, including fellowship at Yale University.

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.

African American religions constitute a diverse group of beliefs and practices that emerged from the African diaspora brought about by the Atlantic slave trade. Traditional religions that had informed the worldviews of Africans were transported to the shores of the Americas and transformed to make sense of new contexts and conditions. This book explores the survival of traditional religions and how African American religions have influenced and been shaped by American religious history. The text provides an overview of the central people, issues, and events in an account that considers Protestant denominations, Catholicism, Islam, Pentecostal churches, Voodoo, Conjure, Rastafarianism, and new religious movements such as Black Judaism, the Nation of Islam, and the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. The book addresses contemporary controversies, including President Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and it will be valuable to all students of African American religions, African American studies, sociology of religion, American religious history, the Black Church, and black theology.

African American Studies: The Discipline and Its Dimensions is a comprehensive resource book that recounts the development of the discipline and provides a basic reference source for sixteen areas of knowledge.