Hampshire College has long been committed to diversity studies. African American studies students have access to a broad range of history, social science, race and ethnicity, politics, economics, dance, art, and literature classes across disciplines. They engage with a variety of texts and resources to gain awareness of the past, present, and future of African-Americans.
Students are encouraged to engage in fieldwork and demographic analysis to gain a stronger understanding of the realities of African-American life.
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What is Africa to Me? |
Africa has always held a special if tenuous place in the formation of African Diasporic self and group identity, as well as shaping various meanings of blackness. To some, Africa is considered the ancestral homeland of humanity. For other African descendants around the world, Africa has historically been viewed as a point of origin and possible place of refuge from the racial and class oppression experienced in the West. W.E.B. Du Bois, for example, relocated to Ghana in 1961 just two years before his death.
At the turn of the 20th century poet Countee Cullen asked “What is Africa to Me?” And recently, President Barack Obama's Kenyan heritage led many to consider him a "son of Africa." Though international definitions of diaspora are common, how does the formation of domestic diasporas impact notions of home for African Americans?
Recognizing the value of a complex diasporic lens that includes race, gender, and class, this course will introduce students to some of the diasporic encounters African descendants have experienced historically and contemporarily from the Harlem Renaissance to Hurricane Katrina.
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The Five College African Studies Certificate Program The Center for Crossroads in the Study of the Americas (CISA) This conception of the Americas as a crossroads seeks to promote an awareness of the historical and material inter-relationality of citizenship, migration, diaspora, and nationhood. The Center sponsors a number of faculty seminars, curriculum development groups, student symposia, a visiting faculty program, and public events. MISS provides a network of comprehensive services and innovative programs that support and advance the intellectual, personal, cultural, and social development of students of color and international students. MISS and the Cultural Center work closely with multicultural student groups that make up SOURCE (Students of Under-Represented Cultures and Ethnicities). These groups serve the following populations: indigenous; mixed heritag;, queer people of color and international students; Asian/Asian American; Latino/a American; African/African American; international; James Baldwin Scholars; and women of color and international women. Additionally, the international student advisor is housed in MISS to assist international students with U.S. immigration and employment regulations, cross-cultural adjustment, and much more.
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