Northwestern Department of African-American Studies

Founded in 1972, the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern is a vibrant place for intellectual exchange, pedagological innovation, and community engagement. As you explore our website, you will notice our department's diasporic focus and its engagement with questions of race and blackness as they manifest all over the globe.

Our scholarship and teaching build and explore analytic paradigms that tease out the commonalities and connections, as well as the differences and debates, with respect to how people organize communities, shape cultures, and navigate dominant racial power structures. We use a variety of methodologies and engage both academia and the wider community in order to contribute to African American Studies' intellectual canon while offering insights, prescriptions, and critical challenges to address larger societal issues.

We are especially pleased to offer a doctoral degree in African American Studies. Launched in 2006, our program seeks to train the next generation of African Americanists in the areas of Expressive Arts and Cultural Studies; Politics, Society, and Culture; and Historical Studies. Our undergraduate program is outstanding and draws students from across the university and across cultures. Finally, our events programming represents an ongoing exchange among members of the Northwestern, local, and national communities.