Graduate Programs

M.A. in African American World Studies

Cognate concentrations leading to M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies

Important Note: Please contact AAWS Program Administrator Brooks Landon (brooks-landon@uiowa.edu) before applying to the AAWS MA Program.

The African American Worlddies Program focuses on the study of people of the African diaspora, particularly yhe United States, and on the peoples of Africa. The program is interdisciplinary, drawing cooperating faculty from American studies, anthropology, art, education, English, French, geography, history, political scie Spanish and Portuguese, sociology, and women's studies.

Because a thorough understanding of African American and African cultures cannot be achieved through study restricted to the perspective of a single discipline, all students in the program are required to pursue courses in both humanities and social sciences. The African American World Studies Program continually expands its perspectives by developing or cross-listing courses that fuse the knowledge drawn many disciplines in t humanities and social sciences.

The program originated in 1969 through courses intended to foster awareness of African Americans' role in the development of the United States; those courses also were designed to promote understanding of the conditions and concerns of African Americans. Since then, the courses have been organized into a curriculum that includes a program leading to a Bachelor of Arts in African American world studies, an undergraduate minor in African American studies, a Master of Arts in African American studies, and concentrations of African American studies in programs leading to a B.A., M.A., or Ph.D. in American studies. Students seeking the Ph.D. in English or history also can organize courses in African American literature or american history into a special field or cognate area.

Although most of the students in the Ph.D. program are preparing to work as teachers and administrators in colleges and universities, the B.A. and M.A. programs provide valuable backgrounds for many other students seeking careers in community work, public school teaching, religioovernment, and political science.