"Introduction to Black Studies is a unique and highly acclaimed introduction to the discipline of Black/Africana Studies, providing students with an essential intellectual basis for a critical understanding and discussion of the history, scope and fundamental concepts, areas and issues which ground and define the discipline"--Publisher's description.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether African American Studies is a discipline, or multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary field. Some scholars assert that African American Studies use a well-defined common approach in examining history, politics, and the family in the same way as scholars in the disciplines of economics, sociology, and political science. Other scholars consider African American Studies multidisciplinary, a field somewhat comparable to the field of education in which scholars employ a variety of disciplinary lenses-be they anthropological, psychological, historical, etc., --to study the African world experience. In this model the boundaries between traditional disciplines are accepted, and researches in African American Studies simply conduct discipline based an analysis of particular topics. Finally, another group of scholars insists that African American Studies is interdisciplinary, an enterprise that generates distinctive analyses by combining perspectives from d

A peerless reference guide to the history of Black Studies from one of the discipline's founders

Publisher Description

The rich collection of essays in Introduction to Africana Studies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Africana Experience provides a thorough and scholarly examination of Africa and its diasporas, focusing on Africana social and cultural history. The selections are written by experts in the fields of literature, history, sociology, anthropology, political writing, feminism, and cultural analysis. Divided into five broad, thematic units, the book begins with an examination of the African continent, its people and civilizations from ancient times through colonialism and post-colonialism. Section Two addresses slavery, colonialism, and freedom. Historical perspective is provided through material on West Africa in the era of slave trade. Readers will benefit from fresh views on emancipation and gain insight into role of religion for African Americans. Section Three is devoted to critical issues of race analysis, including the new racism and racism and feminism. Section Four discusses civil rights, Pan-Africanism, and nationalism, with selections on Black Power, the March on Washington, and Pan-Africanism and national identities. Section Five moves the discussion firmly into the contemporary with works on gender, the Black family, and current public policy issues. Effectively opening up new areas of thought across academic disciplines, Introduction to Africana Studies can be used in both undergraduate and graduate level courses in Africana and African diaspora studies. The book is also a useful tool for researchers in the field.

African American Studies: The Discipline and Its Dimensions is a comprehensive resource book that recounts the development of the discipline and provides a basic reference source for sixteen areas of knowledge.