Introduction Special Issue of JBS: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the First Doctoral Program in Black Studies (original) (raw)
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Journal of Black Studies, 2018
As Temple University’s Department of Africology celebrates the 30th anniversary of its doctoral program, the first of its kind, it is necessary to examine closely the vision and actions of the person, Molefi Kete Asante, who brought this doctoral program into existence. This close examination reveals that Asante’s contributions to African American Studies have been both substantial and institutional, and by all accounts, quite significant. Although occurring simultaneously, these substantial and institutional contributions will be presented separately for the sake of conceptual clarity.
AFROCENTRICITY OR AFROCIRCUS? EXPOSING MOLEFI KETE ASANTE'S SCHOLARSHIP OF DECEIT
Among what could be said to characterize Intellectual dishonesty and irresponsible scholarship and disrespect for knowledge is deliberate failure of a theorist to accede to the demands of what they are theorizing about. The "Father of Afrocentricity", Prof. Molefi Kete Asante, is the present article's case in point to elucidate the assertion I have made in the problem statement above.
African Studies as American Institution
Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, 1997
This chapter from Gupta and Ferguson (1997) explores the historiography of African Studies in the U.S. and argues that the field has been forged through the peculiar American institution of racism.
Black Studies in Historical Perspective
Journal of Social Issues, 1973
This paper presents an overview of the major intellectual forces affecting black scholars in the past and an outline of what will occur in the future. The role of the white researcher is discussed in relationship to the concept of scientific objectivity, with an illustration of how the very concepts employed by researchers ("integration" versus "liberation") channel their energies in one direction as opposed to another. Discussion of black behavior is grounded in a consideration of African behavior. Black Americans are viewed as fundamentally African, not European; the difference between these two provides the legitimate epistemological foundation for a distinctive Black Studies.
Ufahamu, 2008
As an academic d iscipline, African studies in the United States has always had a precarious existence. Its relevance has ascended or declined in proportion to the strategic politicized and racialized value of Africa in US calculations. Befo re the formal institution of the first Afric an studies program at Northwestern University in 1948, efforts by African Ame rican scho lars to draw attentio n to African studies were consistent ly frustrated. Thi s was hard ly surp rising in a soc iety where black s and thei r A frican heritag e were den igrated un t il the C ivil Rights Movem ent of the 19605 launched a major struggle against blatant, official racism. Since the 1960s, however, interest in African stud ies fluctuated depending on the ex isting (inter)national, political, and ideological situa tio ns. Co ntin uing bicker ing amo ng Africanists (Whites and Blacks) over scholarly authority, authentic ity, and gate keep ing as well as the issues of paradigms, re leva nc e, biase s, bounda ri es, and ideol o g ica l and intellectual age ndas. further pol iticized and racia lized African studies. Thi s essay, therefore, is an appraisal of these challenges and how they impinge on the fortu ne of, and approac hes to, African studies in the United States.