Welcome to the Department of Africology!

The mission of the Department of Africology is inquiry into the cultures, societies, and political economies of peoples of African origin and descent. Africology as a discipline encompasses Africa and the African diaspora and researches societies across the globe. In research and teaching, the Department of Africology draws together knowledge of these communities and societies that spans generations and spatial divides in order to gain insights, to examine continuities and breaks, and to critique and generate theories.

Out of our mission comes a commitment to pedagogy and the development of critical thinking and new scholarship. Through our undergraduate courses, the major and the minor, we educate students in the best traditions of liberal arts within our disciplinary framework.

The department's faculty command a range of expertise in areas of political economy, international studies, English, political inquiry, psychological and sociological inquiry, history, and folklore. Faculty members are engaged in innovative research, producing knowledge in many realms: comparative studies of women, black societies in the Americas and Africa, African and African-derived religions, folklore, family and marriage practices, economic and financial issues in underdeveloped areas, racial socialization, literary history and oral traditions, and class, ethnicity and nationalism.