Meredith M. Gadsby, Associate Professor of Africana Studies; chair
Yveline Alexis, Associate Professor of Africana Studies Justin L. Emeka, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Theater Melissa G. George, Lecturer of Africana Studies and Director of the Afrikan Heritage House Everett F. Hardy, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Caroline B. Jackson-Smith, Professor of Africana Studies and Theater Darko K. Opoku, Associate Professor of Africana Studies Charles F. Peterson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Director of the Lemle Center Thomas (Talawa) Prestø, Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Dance Michael B. Roman, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Studio Art
The Department of Africana Studies at Oberlin College is a multidisciplinary program of study that seeks, through the humanities and social sciences, to explore key aspects of the Black experience in a systematic and structurally integrated fashion. Its broad educational purposes are to engender among all students an intellectual appreciation of life, culture, and history in Africa, the Americas, and the diaspora; to enrich the Oberlin College curriculum; and to increase the relevance of an Oberlin education to a culturally diverse world. Thus, the department strives to provide the general student body with substantive knowledge of the Africana experience and to provide majors with a range of critical, intellectual, artistic, and evaluative skills useful in any of their future pursuits. The department is aided in its efforts by the Afrikan Heritage House, which serves as the college’s African diasporan communal and cultural center.
The Africana studies department curriculum offers extensive study of the Black experience in a diasporic setting, including but not limited to, Africa, North America, and the Caribbean. These offerings are arranged in three categories: introductory, intermediate, and advanced. All introductory courses are open without prerequisite, except as indicated in the course description. AAST 101 and other beginning courses may serve as prerequisites to all intermediate and advanced courses.
