General Requirements

Major in African American Studies

The Department of African American Studies currently offers a major in African American Studies. Students must complete ten (10) courses, totaling a minimum of thirty (30) credit hours, and must choose a concentration: Global Race and Ethnicity (GRE), Race, Space, and Public Policy (RSP), and Creativity, Design, and Emerging Forms (CDE). Eligible students electing the honors thesis major must complete a minimum of thirty-six (36) credit hours and choose a concentration area. Courses that deeply and substantively examine Black culture, history and experience throughout the Americas, study African culture, history, people, and politics as pretext and context to Africans in the Americas experience, and explore the Black Atlantic diaspora satisfy the major’s requirements. Students are encouraged to select at least nine credit hours of course work specifically related to African American experience in the United States.

Note: Effective Fall 2023, all main campus courses have been renumbered using a new 4-digit numbering system.

https://schedule.georgetown.edu/course-renumbering-crosswalk/a/#afam

Required courses for Majors:

  • AFAM 1010 (Introduction to African American Studies)
  • AFAM 4560 (Methodologies and Theoretical Issues in African American Studies)
    • Prerequisites: AFAM 1010; MATH 035, 004, 007, or 040, or AP-STATS Credit, or AP-CALC
  • Five courses within the area of concentration (of the five courses, one course must be at the 1000-level, one course must be at the 2000-level, one course must be at the 3000-level, and one course must be at the 4000-level).
  • Two courses within the non-concentration area (courses should be above the 2000-level).
  • One elective on gender, sexuality, or disability (course should be at or above the 2000-level).

Overlay requirements that can be satisfied by any of the above:

  • One pre-twentieth century course
  • One African diaspora outside the United States course

Major Tracking Form

Minor in African American Studies

The Department of African American Studies has implemented the following requirements for the minor in African American Studies.  Students must successfully complete six (6) courses, totaling a minimum of eighteen (18) credit hours. Courses that deeply and substantively examine Black culture, history and experience throughout the Americas, study African culture, history, people, and politics as pretext and context to Africans in the Americas experience, and explore the Black Atlantic diaspora satisfy the major’s requirements. Students are encouraged to select at least nine credit hours of course work specifically related to African American experience in the United States.

New required courses for Minors:

  • AFAM 1010 (Introduction to African American Studies)
  • AFAM 4560 (Methodologies and Theoretical Issues in African American Studies)
    • Prerequisites: AFAM 1010; MATH 035, 004, 007, or 040, or AP-STATS Credit, or AP-CALC
  • Four courses (one at each level, and one elective in department)

Minor Tracking Form

For questions regarding the major or minor, or to declare a major or minor, please contact the Department Chair.

Concentration Descriptions

Global Race and Ethnicity (GRE): Courses in this concentration will comparatively address transnational movement and circuits in patterns and practices that order racialization and ethnicity in black subjects and black life. Courses will provide a critical stance about the relationships between any or all of the following: diaspora/migration, refugee studies, equity, citizenship, border studies, indigenous studies, sociolinguistics, language policies, and social and artistic movements geographies outside of the U.S. and within emerging African and African Diasporic communities’ cultural practices or social policy.

Race, Space, and Public Policy (RSP): Courses in this concentration will examine spatial formations, labor and economy, and growth and formation of racial and ethnic identities alongside the cultural, governmental, physical, and social ecosystems of the modern city, as well as rural areas. They will also address critical human geography and the changing perceptions, measures, and reproduction of inequality in traditional and newly emerging American publics.

Creativity, Design, and Emerging Forms (CDE): Courses in this concentration will explore how contemporary expressive practices are often located between or beyond traditional disciplines, and define art-making as a process supported by theory, analysis, research, and conceptualization. Courses will emphasize imagining alternative futures through creative methodologies and design-led research tools on route to addressing pressing social, economic, political, and environmental issues and challenges of local, national, and global dimensions.