African Studies - Harvard University

African Studies from Harvard University is a Campus Bachelor Area Studies degree that prepares you for a Liberal Arts career. 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. In the course of the last few centuries, Africans and African -descended people 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 contribute importantly 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 Studies Track and the African American Studies Track. African Studies 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 art history, music, economics, government, history, anthropology, social studies , romance languages and literatures, and religion. Courses in the Business School, Divinity School, Education, and Kennedy School may also be available for credit. The African American Studies 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 the US, participating in the American Revolution, the Civil War, women’s suffrage, and the New Deal, and leading the struggle for equality in the second half of the twentieth century. Third, because American political life remains encumbered by the legacies and the 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 the widespread human problem of ethno-racial conflict. 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 places in the Caribbean and in 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 cultures 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; and they also go on to work in a wide variety of careers in education, business, law, public policy, and the arts and sciences. View more details on Harvard University . Ask your questions and apply online for this program or find other related Area Studies courses.