Department Info

Message from the Chair

On behalf of the faculty, staff, and students of the Africana Studies Department here at CSU Dominguez Hills, I would like to welcome you to our website.

We encourage you to peruse the site for information about Africana Studies courses, faculty, and programs. We offer a dynamic multi-disciplinary curriculum exploring the global African diaspora experience in history, art and literature and the social sciences. Our faculty are committed to the highest standards of teaching, advising and supporting our students both inside and outside of the classroom. We also offer a wide variety of co-curricular opportunities such as a Distinguished Speaker Series, MLK Symposium, Black History Month Programming, and opportunities for student participation in national research conferences.

Current students and alumni regularly comment on both the intellectual rigor and the life-affirming value of an Africana Studies education. We invite you to explore our offerings and contact us with any questions.

Career Possibilities

The Department of Africana Studies provides undergraduate training for students interested in developing careers in teaching, academic research, international relations and community development. Often graduate work is required in certain job categories. However, persons with an Africana Studies background are employed in a wide range of careers such as counseling, social work, international consultant, foreign service , public relations , educational administration, media, management, urban planning, librarianship, law, and law enforcement.

Recently nationally recognized employers gave advice to CSU students regarding the skills necessary to be successful in the workplace after graduation. Some of the skills that were highlighted were the type of qualities we reinforce in the Africana Studies Department:

• Oral Communication
• Written Communication
• Leadership Potential
• Research Skills
• Global, Multicultural, Multiethnic, Multilingual and International Skills

For addtional information about what you can do about an Africana Studies Major, read the What Can I Do With A Black Studies Major? 222 Answers [PDF].

Program Learning Outcomes

1. Students will learn how to make use of logical, critical, and analytical thinking skills in order to write well-argued essays and other writing assignments, including the ability to deliver effective oral presentations.
2. Students will be taught how to engage in information-driven research, applying critical and academically rigorous research skills that enable them to make appropriate use of current reliable electronic information, in addition to more traditional sources of inquiry.
3. Students will learn how to interpret, analyze and evaluate primary and secondary scholarly texts produced either within the discipline of Africana Studies itself or from outside of the discipline, thereby cultivating an appreciation for a diversity of knowledge sources, tolerance of cultural differences, and enlarged understanding of social and historical perspectives.
4. Students will critically assess historical and contemporary knowledge-paradigms that address the nature of power arrangements linked to concrete social circumstances, studied through multi-faceted lenses of the dynamic relationships between race, class, nationality, gender, and ethnicity to the life circumstances of Africana subjects, their communities, and their accounts of personal identity.
5. Students will evaluate approaches to the study of feminist/womanist studies, and related ideologies of sexuality and institutionalized rule-governed behaviors.
6. Students will understand changing demographics at the regional, national, and global levels insofar as these social patterns relate to economic and political development among Africana world peoples.
7. Students will analyze historic and contemporary political engagements among Africana leaders and their struggles to share their visions of fairness and justice in ways that help shape public policy.
8. Students will apply the theoretical foundations of critical theories utilized in Africana Studies and how the approaches aid in explaining the experiences of peoples of color in the United States and abroad.
9. Students will know how to make well-reasoned reflective value judgments about:
   1. Africana art productions and the body of mainstream art more generally speaking, along with the aesthetic and culture-shaped theories by means of which such inquiries are critically assessed, and
   2. core practices and theories of Africana spirituality, and the functions of religious symbols, and ritual practices in Africana communities.
10. Students will engage in practical leadership experiences by organizing community-based events and working in Africana community organizations through service learning courses and internships.
11. Students will be provided with ample opportunities to attend and become active participants in our annual distinguished lecture series and other presentation/conference venues, to receive constructive feedback from faculty on their instructionally related research projects, and to collaborative with Department faculty in carrying out discipline-based research intended for scholarly publication and/or presentation.