The Program in Africana Studies, which is administered by the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, offers a wide range of courses on black experiences throughout the Diaspora – including Africa, the Caribbean and South America, Europe and the United States – from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. The Program maintains particular strengths in Pan-African history and thought and black urban studies. Pan-African history and thought incorporates the study of such literary and political movements as abolitionism, the Harlem Renaissance, Garveyism, the Negritude movement, black consciousness and black feminism. Courses deal not only with the rise of such movements but also with the social, economic and political dynamics of slavery, colonialism, segregation and post-colonialism that provided the impetus and backdrop of political struggle and cultural production. Black urban studies focuses on the analysis of black peoples’ relations to a wide range of social, cultural, political and municipal institutions, from museums and public parks to music and sports industries, the mass media, the police and public schools. Courses also explore patterns of black migration and black ethnic identities, creolization, black cultural production, and questions of class, gender and sexuality within black communities as well as relationships with other ethnic communities.

The program offers both an undergraduate BA and a Master’s degree. It also maintains ties to the Institute of African American Affairs and Africa House, both of which run cultural and educational programming throughout the school years as well as to NYU in Ghana, which provides summer and semester-long study abroad opportunities.