Africana Studies 201 - METHODS OF INQUIRY

This course is designed to introduce students to the many methods of inquiry used for research in interdisciplinary fields such as Afro-American studies. Guided by a general research topic or theme, students are exposed to different methods for asking questions and gathering evidence. Using theories and conceptualizations of the African diaspora as a case study, this course gives students an introduction to and practice in the tools of intellectual investigation in the study of black history and culture/ racial formations in the United States and internationally. Students read, attend lectures and learn from scholars whose work is based in particular disciplines (especially history, literature, cultural studies and the social sciences). You also learn the challenges and opportunities made possible by doing interdisciplinary research. Through the multi- and interdisciplinary approach to a single topic or text (in the case of this semester, the diaspora), students learn how scholars in each discipline ask certain kinds of research questions and take certain kinds of research approaches, and how to put these various methods in conversation with each other. Finally, students develop their own research project related to the focus of this course (race, ethnicity and the social construction of identity) by means of library and media-based research.

Topic: Approaches to the African Diaspora.