The Department of Africana and American Studies aims to promote excellence in cross-border, comparative and interdisciplinary research and teaching, and replicate the experience of a small liberal arts college in the midst of a major research university.
Within the department, students have access to several fields of study: African and African American Studies, American Studies, Canadian Studies, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, and Latino/a Studies. While each of the fields that comprise our programs have a long and independent history, they have been brought together under one roof to allow students to meet the challenges of membership in the world’s ever more deeply connected, yet always diverse, communities.
We see our department as the university’s gateway for students eager to explore connections across boundaries of all kinds: across national borders, continents and oceans; across lines of social identity; across time; between humanity and the natural environment; across the disciplines; between theory and practice; and between research and social engagement.