African and African American Studies

Professor Tommie Shelby, Director of Undergraduate Studies

African and African American Studies brings together scholars and scholarship from many disciplines to explore the histories, societies, economies, and cultures of African and African-descended people. The Department of African and African American Studies is not only interdisciplinary but also comparative and cross-cultural. Over the course of the last few centuries, Africans and people of African descent have developed cultural forms, especially in music and dance, which have profoundly shaped popular and high art in the Americas and all around the planet. Cross-cultural perspectives make important contributions to broader debates about race and ethnicity. Thus, ideas about race are among the central objects of study in the field of African and African American Studies, affecting not just Africans and their descendants but all other human beings as well. In addressing the ethical and political consequences of racial thinking, the African and African American Studies faculty raise questions relevant to the experiences of all modern peoples.

The department offers two distinct courses of study: the African track and the African American track. African track concentrators come to the program with a variety of interests, e.g., the environment, health and disease, ethnic conflicts, state and civil society relations, music, etc. Components of the African track include study in the African Languages Program, disciplinary requirements, electives, and the option of study abroad. The department offers seminars and lecture courses on a variety of Africa-related topics. Concentrators in the African track will take courses from a variety of departments, drawing from History of Art and Architecture, Music, Economics, Government, History, Anthropology, Social Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Religion. Courses in the Business School, Divinity School, the School of Education, and Kennedy School may also be available for credit.

The African American track attracts students with an equally wide range of interests. There are many reasons students pursue African American Studies. First, African American music, literature, and the visual arts are significant cultural achievements. Second, African Americans have played a crucial role in the history of the US, participating in the American Revolution, the Civil War, women's suffrage and the New Deal, and have led the struggle for equality in the second half of the twentieth century. Third, because American political life remains encumbered by the legacy and continuing practice of racism, a proper historical, sociological, and economic understanding of race relations remains a central need for those who seek to reflect on contemporary public policy. Fourth, the various cultural patterns developed in the New World, in such countries as the US, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and Brazil, provide important models of ethno-racial conflict, which is a widespread societal problem.

Exploring African and African American cultures requires us to explore aspects of the many other cultures and peoples that have created the mosaic of the modern world. Thus diaspora studies are integral to each track. In many parts of the Caribbean and Latin America, for example, religions and performance arts are influenced by African belief systems and practices. The cultures of the African Atlantic diaspora have also developed in interaction with other peoples: the many Native American cultures; the Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Scandinavian, Scottish, Spanish, and other European groups that came with colonists and immigrants; and with the traditions that have come with immigrants from East and South Asia.

Students who graduate with a concentration in African and African American Studies go on to pursue advanced degrees in such fields as history, literature, politics, government, and sociology. They also go on to work in a wide variety of careers in education, business, law, public policy, and the arts and sciences.

REQUIREMENTS

African American Studies Track
Basic Requirements: 14 half-courses

1. Required courses:
1. AAAS 10: Introduction to African American Studies (not restricted to concentrators). Students should take this course by the end of their sophomore year. (Students who transfer into the concentration after their sophomore year will be permitted to substitute for AAAS 10 a course in African and African American Studies they have already taken, but only if they can demonstrate to the Director of Undergraduate Studies that they have established a basic familiarity with the materials covered in AAAS 10.)
2. AAAS 118.
3. AAAS 131.
4. Two half-courses, one in African American humanities and one in African American social sciences. (These courses need not be given in the department.)
5. Six half-courses for the concentration. These may include relevant courses from the Core. In picking these six half-courses students should declare a focus. Some students will declare a disciplinary focus or a more general focus in humanities or social sciences; others, an area focus in African American or Afro-Caribbean cultures; others, a thematic methodological or comparative focus (e.g., comparative ethnic studies, comparative literary analysis, urban studies). These are not the only possibilities, but students should be prepared to make a coherent case for the course of electives they propose.
2. Tutorials:
1. AAAS 97a (one term), required. Letter-graded.
2. AAAS 97b (one term). Letter-graded.
   
   97a & b are topical seminars whose contents change each year. They aim to introduce students to important materials and methods in the study of literature and culture, on the one hand, and of history and society on the other. Tutorial 97a includes concentrators from both tracks and covers an Africa/African diaspora topic.
   
   
3. AAAS 98 (one term), required. Letter-graded. An individual tutorial to be taken in the junior year.

Note: Students can take AAAS 10, 97a, and 97b in succeeding terms starting in their freshman or sophomore year, and then proceed to do individual tutorials in the junior year. Nevertheless, the tutorial program is designed to allow great flexibility: students who declare late may take AAAS 97b concurrently with AAAS 10, for example; AAAS 97a and 97b are not a "sequence" and need not be taken in any particular order; and concentrators may be permitted to substitute for AAAS 10, if they declare late.



3. Other information: No courses used for the concentration may be taken Pass/Fail.
4. Teaching: Concentrators may be eligible to obtain certification to teach in middle or secondary schools in Massachusetts and states with which Massachusetts has reciprocity. See information about the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program (UTEP).

Requirements for Honors Eligibility: 16 half-courses

1. Required courses:
   a-e. Same as Basic Requirements.
2. Tutorials:
   a-c. Same as Basic Requirements.
   d. Senior year: One year of AAAS 99 required. Senior Thesis Workshop. Letter-graded.
3. Thesis: Required.
4. Other information: No courses used for concentration may be taken Pass/Fail.

Requirements for Joint Concentrations: 8 half-courses and thesis

1. Required courses:
   a-d. Same as Basic Requirements.
2. Tutorials:
   a-c. Same as Basic Requirements.
   d. Senior year: AAAS 99, full year, required if African American Studies is the primary field; letter-graded. If African American Studies is not the primary field, the student should register for the thesis tutorial in the primary field.
3. Thesis: Required. Thesis must be related to both fields. Both departments will participate in the grading of the thesis and oral examination, if an oral examination is required by the other department.
4. Other information: No courses used for concentration may be taken Pass/Fail

African Studies Track
Basic Requirements: 14 half-courses

1. Required Courses:
1. AAAS 20: Introduction to African Languages and Cultures (not restricted to concentrators). Indigenous languages serve as a road map to understanding how social, political, and economic institutions and processes develop: from kinship structures, the evolution of political offices, trade relations, to the transfer of environmental knowledge. African languages are key to apprehending how sub-Saharan Africans understand, organize, and transmit essential knowledge to successive generations.
2. Other survey course on African history.
3. Two half courses on Africa, one in the social sciences and one in the humanities. (These courses need not be given in the department.)
4. Six half-courses. These may include relevant courses from the Core and discipline-specific courses. In picking these six half-courses, students should declare a focus. Some students will declare a disciplinary focus or more general focus in the humanities or in social sciences; others, an area focus or thematic methodological or comparative focus (e.g., comparative literary or historical analysis, comparative economic and political development). These are not the only possibilities, but students are required to make a coherent case for the course of electives they choose.
5. Two terms of an African language. The language requirement is met by attaining a level of competence equivalent to two half-courses of African language study. Students who can show evidence at the beginning of their concentration that they have a level of competence equivalent to two half-courses of African language study will be required to substitute other courses offered in the department. Language courses taken outside of Harvard may be substituted upon approval by the Director of the Language Program and the undergraduate adviser.
2. Tutorials:
1. Sophomore Tutorial: AAAS 97a, a one-term course focusing on an African/African Diaspora topic.
2. Junior Tutorial: AAAS 98a, a one-term course that focuses on African studies topics to explore the contributions of African studies scholarship to individual disciplines and to explore the methodologies most useful for African studies research.

Requirements for Honors Eligibility: 16 half-courses

1. Required courses:
   a-c. Same as Basic Requirements.
   d. Four half-courses. These may include relevant courses from the Core and discipline-specific courses. In picking these four half-courses, students should declare a focus. Some students will declare a disciplinary focus or more general focus in the humanities or in social sciences; others, an area focus or thematic methodological or comparative focus (e.g., comparative literary or historical analysis, comparative economic and political development,). These are not the only possibilities, but students are required to make a coherent case for the course of electives they choose.
   e. Four terms of an African language. The language requirement is met by attaining a level of competence equivalent to four half-courses of African language study. Students who can show evidence at the beginning of their concentration that they have a level of competence equivalent to four half-courses of African language study, will be required to substitute other courses offered in the department. Languages courses taken outside of Harvard may be substituted upon approval by the Director of the Language Program and the undergraduate adviser.
   
2. Tutorials:
1. Same as Basic Requirements.
2. Senior year: One year of AAAS 99 required. Senior Thesis Workshop. Letter-graded.
3. Thesis: Required.

Requirements for Joint Concentration: 8 half-courses and thesis

1. Required courses:
   a-c. Same as Basic Requirements.
   d. Two terms of an African language. Students who intend to conduct thesis research in Africa are encouraged to continue African language instruction beyond the first year.
2. Tutorials:
1. Same as Basic Requirements.
2. Senior year: One year of AAAS 99 required, if African Studies is the primary field. Letter-graded. If African Studies is not the primary field, the student should register for the thesis tutorial of the primary field.
3. Thesis: Required. Thesis must be related to both fields. Both departments will participate in the grading of the thesis and oral examination if an oral examination is required by the other department.
4. Other information: No course used for the concentration may be taken Pass/Fail. Students are encouraged to explore the option available for study in Africa, either during the regular academic year or the summer. It is recommended that students study abroad in the spring term of their junior year. In either case they must get approval of their plan of study from the department's Director of Undergraduate Studies.

ADVISING

Beginning in the sophomore year, concentrators will work directly with their individual advisers and with the Director of Undergraduate Studies to create a plan of study that meets their academic interests. The department requires that students develop a focus as part of their declaration of the concentration. This plan of study will take cognizance of disciplinary requirements and the option of study abroad, yet it will be flexible enough to accommodate students in pursuit of their own specific intellectual curiosities. Students are asked to submit a one- to two-page Concentration Focus Statement describing the main area(s) of study they wish to explore. The Director of Undergraduate Studies will meet with students, if they request, in order to assist them in the formulation of the statement of concentration focus.

RESOURCES

The Franklin D. and Wendy F. Raines Library, in the Department of African and African American Studies, is located on the second floor of the Barker Center and contains a non-circulating collection of important books, academic and popular periodicals, and offprints, as well as an extensive audio and video collections. Past undergraduate theses are also available. An important resource for African Studies concentrators is the booklet African Studies at Harvard: A Guide to Courses and Faculty, compiled annually by the staff of the Committee on African Studies. Also, for updated information on African Studies courses see www.fas.harvard.edu/ ~cafrica. This guide identifies teaching, research, and advisory work on Africa in a number of departments, centers, and institutes at Harvard. Harvard's Office of International Programs has approved study abroad in eleven African countries. To plan their term in Africa students should meet with the Director of the Office of International Programs.

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE

Students should consult the departmental handbook containing information about concentration rules, the senior thesis, model programs, faculty interests, and departmental resources. The handbook is available in the departmental office. Additional information is available from the Director of Undergraduate Studies or the Undergraduate Coordinator (617-495-4113) and on the web at www.fas.harvard.edu/~afroam. The department is located on the second floor of the Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street.

Number of Concentrators as of November