hdbk_blackstudies ch 9.pdf

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-sea...

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-search-entry, and may also include videos, embedded datasets, downloadable datasets, interactive questions, audio content, and downloadable tables and resources. Author: Ama Mazama Pub. Date: 2010 Product: Sage Reference DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412982696 Keywords: Asante, faculty, paradigms, departments, discipline, universities Disciplines: Race & Ethnicity, Race, Ethnicity & Migration, Black Studies, Sociology Access Date: July 8, 2024 Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Online ISBN: 9781412982696 © 2010 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Graduate Studies Programs in African American Studies AmaMazama It is a well-known fact that African American Studies (AAS) academic units came into existence as a result of great political pressure on European institutions, forcing them to make space for the African voice and ex- perience in the late 1960s. No longer satisfied to be fed the Eurocentric monologue that was occurring on campuses under the guise of education and whose main purpose was the reinforcement and justification of European supremacy and to pay the cost of Europe's cultural soliloquy—namely, their disenfranchisement and alienation from the classroom (Asante, 1992)—African students and community activists brought to the fore of the discussion the question of educational relevance for Black people, arguing for a culturally inclusive and sensitive curriculum, apt to produce scholars in tune with, and committed to, their communities (Karenga, 1993). As a result of many determined and courageous struggles, about 800 programs and departments of AAS, or Black Studies as it was called then, flourished in the early 1970s. Much of the fervor of that period, however, has dissipated, and this may explain why many universities have been able to quietly and effectively dismantle many of those early programs, leaving us today with about 175 of them. Most of them award undergraduate degrees only in AAS, 15 offer a master's degree in AAS, and 6 offer a Ph.D. in AAS—namely, Temple University, UC Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Harvard University, Yale University, and Michigan State University. It is the purpose of this essay to review the graduate programs in AAS, with a special emphasis on Ph.D. programs, given the importance of doctoral programs for the building and future of AAS.1 It must be noted at the onset that given that AAS programs and departments have been in existence for almost 40 years, the number of graduate programs is rather low. In fact, when compared with a field like Women's Studies, which came into existence in the wake of AAS, the latter does not fare well. Indeed, there are at least 10 programs offering Ph.D.s in Women's Studies today. This failure to establish itself more firmly at the graduate level, in particular at the Ph.D. level, can be attrib- uted, in large part, to two related reasons that need to be examined closely if we are to improve the current situation. Handbook of Black Studies Page 2 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. The first, most obvious, one is racism. Only with great reluctance and anxiety did universities admit the need to make room for the African experience, and although we were successful in creating Black Studies acad- emic units on campuses, this did not, of course and unfortunately, mean that the racism that had made our struggle necessary in the first place was dead (Smith, 1995). In fact, as noted above, the number of AAS programs has been steadily dwindling, many being eliminated without much notice or consultation. Generally speaking, there has been a weak commitment to Black Studies on the part of many universities, Black and White, resulting in the creation of structural obstacles to the development of graduate studies programs in AAS. Two main scenarios operate, which we shall review briefly, because obviously these have an impact on AAS graduate programs, and explain, at least in part, their scarcity. In many cases, AAS units achieve only program or center status, which almost automatically precludes the development of a graduate program. In addition, those programs may have no faculty members, or very few, of their own. This has the clear disadvantage of placing AAS programs at the mercy of European Studies departments to have courses taught or forces them to rely on cross-listing. Furthermore, should no Africa-re- lated course be offered on campus during a given semester, then Black Studies programs remain just a name on paper. Similarly, those programs that must rely on the goodwill of European Studies departments to allow some of their faculty to occasionally teach Africa-related classes often find themselves in the difficult position of having to beg (usually) White chairs, with no assurance that their cry will be heard. This state of affairs can hardly be regarded as propitious to the creation of a graduate program in AAS! In many other cases, AAS programs or departments do not have full-time faculty members, but only joint ap- pointments with their tenure in a European Studies department. Even a cursory survey of current AAS acad- emic units will reveal that very few of them have a full-time faculty. The consequence of such a common state of affairs is the divided allegiance of the faculty member, who must fulfill responsibilities in two different units. This is almost always done at the expense of the AAS unit, because the other department or program is of- ten the tenure home of the faculty member. Another, probably even more serious, drawback is that European Studies departments control who will be appointed and tenured in AAS. Because a joint appointment will be made, the candidate must meet the criteria for appointment and tenure established by the European Studies department. This, of course, has profound implications for the nature of the research, as well as the content of the courses taught by the faculty member in question. The fact that AAS departments or programs do not have the only say, and certainly not the final say, in such matters automatically translates to their relinquishing a considerable amount of autonomy, and it severely limits their ability to establish their own research agenda and curriculum—in other words, to build themselves up as strong Black Studies departments, leading even- tually to the creation of a graduate program. Handbook of Black Studies Page 3 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. This institutional racism, however, draws its source from a collective cultural European definition of Africans as inferior beings and, therefore, of the AAS intellectual enterprise as an equally inferior one. Indeed, one must admit that the intellectual definition of AAS that prevails at most White (or Black) universities, remains, in most cases, predicated on an unquestioned (or only superficially questioned) acceptance of the European perspective on the African experience. This perspective, especially as it emerged during the so-called European Enlightenment period, evolved both internally, with the development of a meta-paradigm specific and relevant to Europe, and externally, in opposi- tion to “others,” especially African people. Thus, at least three assumptions of that European meta-paradigm have played a major and negative role as far as we are concerned: 1. Europeans are superior, Africans are inferior: In his seminal book on Eurocentric historians, Blaut (2000, pp. 200–203) lists no less than 30 common reasons why according to Europeans they are “better than every- one else.” Those include a better climate in Europe, better soils, a uniquely indented coastline, a unique in- ventiveness, and rationality, among many ludicrous and unsubstantiated arguments. This self-proclaimed Eu- ropean superiority, also referred to by some as the “European miracle,” led to “Eurocentric diffusionism”—that is, as Blaut explains again, “the fundamental assumption that progress is somehow permanent and natural in the European part of the world but not elsewhere, and progress elsewhere is mainly the result of the diffusion of innovate ideas and products from Europe and Europeans” (p. xi). Although the concept of progress itself is problematic, what is clear nonetheless is the idea that Europe is solely responsible for all “major” cultural achievements, which were later transmitted to other people in the world. In such as schema of things, we are thus destined to be consumers of European culture, be it under the form of concepts or goods. During the Enlightenment period, most common was a classification of all human beings into four or more categories, distinguished by their level of civilization, with the same invariable conclusion: Europeans are civ- ilized, others are not, or less, civilized. Two well-known examples will suffice here: Herbert Spencer's social Darwinist theory classified all human societies into four levels of differentiation: simple, compound, doubly compound, and trebly compound, and Edward Tylor, a major figure in anthropology, believed in three great stages of human evolution: savagery, barbarism, and civilization (with the beginning of writing). In that Euro- centric context, cultural differences become marks of inferiority. David Hume, considered by many to be the most important British philosopher of all times, perhaps best summarized the views of many of his fellow Eu- ropeans, when he wrote that he was apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complex- Handbook of Black Studies Page 4 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. ion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manu- factures among them, no arts, no sciences. (cited in Eze, 1997, p. 33) However, there is some hope for the “savages”: evolution and progress, under the guidance of Europeans. The “civilizing mission” of the 19th century was revamped in the second part of the 20th century as “develop- ment.” Such a view is understandable within the context of linear evolutionism, the second assumption dis- cussed here: 2. All human beings evolve along the same line: The best known example of such linear and universal evolu- tionism is Marxism, with its four different stages, which every society in the world is supposed to experience. Each stage is based on a characteristic mode of ownership of the productive forces: tribal, ancient, feudal, and capitalist modes of production. Although this might have been a European pattern, Marx, however, did not hesitate to generalize it to the whole of humankind. Thus, the European experience is presented as uni- versal: Grand statements are made about what it means to be human, based solely on the European model. According to Hegel, for example, to assert his humanity, “man” must stand in opposition to nature. The truth of the matter is that opposition to nature, rather than an organic and respectful stance, is a characteristic and highly problematic European attitude, rarely shared by other human beings around the world. Yet what is specifically European is presented as universal and becomes the norm by which others' humanity (or rather, lack of) is evaluated. Ironically, and tragically, what might be seen as an abnormality is erected as an ideal. Similarly, Marx considered the European colonization as ultimately a positive and necessary development to open up the world to “progress.” Discussing the British colonization of India, for example, Marx had this to say: The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution (from “The British rule in India,” cited in Sanderson, 1990, p. 55). 3. “Others” (us) are defined by their encounters with Europeans: In other words, we did not come into mean- ingful existence until Europeans established contact with us—hence a Eurocentric historiography that places the brutal European intervention into our lives as the defining starting point of our existence. As the European historian Trevor-Roper (1965) dutifully explains, Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none, or very little: there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is largely darkness, like the history of pre-European, pre-Columbian America. And darkness is not a subject for history. (p. 9) Let us note here in passing, that Trevor-Roper simply echoed the views developed by a much more distin- Handbook of Black Studies Page 5 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. guished European philosopher—namely, Hegel, for whom, in what he called “Black Africa,” “history is in fact out of the question. Life there consists of a succession of contingent happenings and surprises” (cited in Eze, 1997, p. 126). Following that logic, the history of Africa has thus been divided into a pre-colonial and a colo- nial/postcolonial period, during which, it is said, we started “developing”—that is, emulating Europeans. In a similar fashion, diasporic Africans are also made to believe that our history started in the 17th century, when our immediate ancestors were dragged in chains to those American shores. In that context, the bulk of our existential experience would have been as “slaves” to Europeans. In the best and most generous case, we are depicted as “resisting” our mean White “masters”; in the worst case, as acquiescing to our servile sta- tus and happily participating in our own oppression. However, whatever the case, the fundamental and racist assumptions of this Eurocentric historiography are not questioned: We are always defined in relation to Eu- ropeans. Utterly absent is any idea of African references independent of Europe; painfully obfuscated is the concept of African agency, which would have led to a totally different historiography. Although the crude and openly racist theories and language cited above may have been dropped from (at least public) discourse, Eu- rocentric assumptions remain unchanged. Unsurprisingly, then, the very internalization of these Eurocentric assumptions about our place in the world, as well as the place of Europeans of themselves, constitutes the second major reason why AAS has failed to thrive at the graduate level. Indeed, our failure to expand more significantly has been caused by our own con- fusion about ourselves and about the academic and intellectual standing of AAS, the two being intimately and ultimately linked. This state of affairs is not a new development but has characterized AAS since its inception. Asante (1988) sheds light on this predicament when he reminds us that, indeed, Black Studies was not born with any clear intellectual vision for itself: “The field of Black Studies or African-American Studies was not born from a clear ideological position in the 1960s. Our analyses as students were correct, but our solutions were often fragmentary, ideologically immature, and philosophically ill-defined” (p. 58). The underlying assumption was, and still remains to a large extent, that the African experience is fundamentally subordinate to the White experience and, thus, ultimately understandable within the White cultural and historical context. That this is indeed the case can be easily demonstrated. First, most graduate programs are informed by a Eu- rocentric historiography. At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for example, only one course (special topic) “African Origins of the Afro-American Community” seems to suggest an awareness that the so-called Afro-Americans had a life before our enslavement by Europeans, and at Harvard University, such a course is not even available. In fact, Africans are referred to either as “Blacks” or as “Afro-Americans” but never as “African Americans,” let alone as “Africans” in course titles. In reality, those M.A. and Ph.D. programs adhere for the most part to what could be called a slave studies paradigm, one within which the African experience is Handbook of Black Studies Page 6 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. apprehended in relation to and through Europeans. The categories used are, unsurprisingly, European. The University of California at Berkeley, for instance, offers courses on “developing societies”—that is, African so- cieties defined as less than and emulating European societies. Second, all graduate programs, with the exception of Temple and Wisconsin, define themselves as “interdisci- plinary” or “multidisciplinary”—that is, as a field of study that is dependent on so-called traditional, established disciplines, namely, European disciplines. In other words, to exist, AAS must be tied to European Studies. The most pathetic example of that line of thinking is provided by Yale, which offers a joint Ph.D. in AAS. Fur- thermore, in that strange arrangement, there is no claim to equality: “Each applicant in the department selects a single disciplinary or interdisciplinary program which the African American Studies Department considers to be his or her primary field of study.” Thus, the African American Studies Department readily admits to its being secondary to the “traditional” discipline chosen by the students. All the faculty members who suppos- edly teach in that department have joint appointments or no appointment at all in AAS. At Harvard, where the degree awarded is a “Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies,” a similar model prevails. The aim of the Harvard pro- gram is “to combine an interdisciplinary training in African American cultural and social studies with a focus in a major disciplinary field, leading to the Ph.D. in African American Studies.” As a result, half the courses taken by the students who seek a Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies must be from a “traditional,” discipline, such as anthropology, sociology, English, and so on. Quite consistently, all the faculty members of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard have joint appointments. In fact, Harvard does not even claim disciplinary status for itself but is content to define AAS simply as a field, with a focus on African people as the defining criterion, whereas the tools of intellectual investigation are drawn from European disciplines, defined as “pri- mary.” One can only wonder how a program such as Harvard's justifies its existence and what it can honestly claim to contribute to AAS. It could be argued, however, that it is only as an interdisciplinary program that the Afro-American Studies department could be tolerated at Harvard. Not only is such an arrangement nonthreat- ening to the established order of things, but it also confirms the subordinate status of African people. In fact, Harvard University, which used to claim to have the premier department of AAS and the premier Ph.D. pro- gram in AAS, had attempted to garner credibility for its Afro-American program by hiring Henry Louis Gates in 1990. The latter embarked shortly afterward, in the midst of much media hype, on assembling a loose group of highly visible Black intellectuals, the so-called Dream Team. Those Black scholars, as could be expected, remained fully committed to their respective European discipline and department. This strategy, however, re- sulted in a precarious arrangement for the Harvard AAS program, which started to fall to pieces a few years later, with the departure of some of its most visible half-members, Cornel West and Anthony Appiah, shortly followed by Gates's own leave of absence from Harvard. Handbook of Black Studies Page 7 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. One finds the same emphasis on the multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary aspect of AAS elsewhere, of course. According to the University of Massachusetts program, for example, that AAS can only be conceived of as multidisciplinary is dictated by the fact that because “the Afro-American experience is as multidimensional as life itself, the study of that experience must range over many disciplines.” At Berkeley, there seems to be some confusion over the status of AAS; the program (curiously) defines AAS as “an interdisciplinary field that focuses on race as a social construction” and yet, in the same paragraph, also describes African American Studies as “a coherent and innovative discipline.” And the newly created Michigan State University Ph.D. pro- gram also conforms to the definition of AAS as interdisciplinary. The failure of those involved in AAS to give a positive definition of themselves is another example of their (willing or unwilling) participation in the slave studies paradigm. The slave can only be defined in relation to his or her master. It is, of course, easy to understand why those who teach in AAS programs are quite comfortable with a de- finition of AAS as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or “transdisciplinary,” as they put it at Cornell University, because they have been trained, for the most part, in a European discipline. They simply continue applying the skills acquired while being trained as sociologists, psychologists, literary critics, linguists, historians, and the like, while focusing on some aspect of the African experience. In other words, they have generally not questioned the premises on which the European intellectual discourse rests, nor have they seriously ques- tioned its relevance to our lives. The Ph.D. programs surveyed above, Harvard, Yale, the University of Massachusetts, Berkeley, and Michigan State emerged after the first Ph.D. in African American Studies was developed at Temple University in 1988, under the direction of Professor Molefi Kete Asante. However, although it is only fair to recognize Temple's leadership in the development of Ph.D. programs in AAS, one must also admit that the philosophy that in- formed the first Ph.D. program in AAS was not espoused by those that came in its wake. Indeed, there is a major difference between the Temple Ph.D. program and those other ones—namely, the conscious rejection by Temple of the European metaparadigm and the espousal of the Afrocentric paradigm.2 What defines Afrocentricity, the philosophy on which the Afrocentric paradigm is based, is the crucial role at- tributed to the African social and cultural experience as our ultimate reference (Asante, 1988, 1992, 1998). Afrocentricity fully acknowledges the negative impact that Europe has had on the lives of African people and suggests the restoration of a sense of historical and cultural continuity as the first and indispensable step for our recovery. Quite naturally, the Afrocentric historiography assumes African ancient civilizations as the most relevant historical and cultural source for African people, wherever we may find ourselves today. Afrocentricity also contends that it is our acceptance of ideas foreign to our cultural reality and ethos, imposed on us by Eu- Handbook of Black Studies Page 8 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. ropeans as “universal” and superior, that has caused the state of great dislocation in which we find ourselves today—hence, the imperative need to find in our own cultural references the concepts and practices that will benefit us. The organizing principle of the Afrocentric paradigm is thus the centrality of the African experience for African people (Mazama, 2001, 2003). The position taken by the Department of Africology at Temple is that what defines AAS as AAS (and not something else) is the focus on the African experience from an African per- spective—that is, Afrocentricity. Much of what passes for AAS is nothing but European Studies of Africa and her people. Such confusion is made possible by the unquestioned, yet highly problematic, acceptance of the European perspective as universal. AAS is defined in this context as one discipline, with its own concepts and methodologies. That we concern ourselves with different topics does not, in any case, contradict the unidisci- plinary status of AAS but is very much to be expected, because AAS is “a discipline dedicated to an inclusive and holistic study of Black life” (Karenga, 1993, p. 22). As a result, it covers all aspects of African lives. In addition, the purpose of Afrocentrically generated knowledge is to empower African people and give us the means to ultimately put an end to our current predicament. The courses offered in the Department of Africol- ogy reflect that commitment to Afrocentricity3 For example, our students are taught, among other things, to decipher Mdw Ntr, the ancient Egyptian language, as well as receiving instruction in ancient African history and civilizations. On the other hand, although American slavery is understandably mentioned in several class- es, there is not a single class devoted to that sole topic. Emphasis is rather placed on our past, current, and possible victories. Furthermore, every year until 1997, the Department of Africology sponsored the Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference, a major international platform for Afrocentric research.4 In addition, the faculty members, although trained in European disciplines, have engaged in what we call “dis- cipline suicide.” We recognize the need to create theories and research methods that are consistent with the Afrocentric paradigm. The Temple program has been highly successful in attracting hundreds of Africans from all over the world, who come eager to be a part of a liberating educational experience. This does not mean, of course, that the Department of Africology at Temple University has been immune to the racism that I identified at the beginning of the present essay as having seriously undermined AAS over the years. The department may have been “too” successful in the eyes of many committed to maintaining the status quo. In fact, the attacks against the Afrocentric paradigm have been fierce, especially since 1997, when the administration of Temple University hired a new chair for the Department of Africology, whose mission was to dismantle the program as it was, and replace it by a Yale-type program. Under this new plan, the students would have had two advisers, one Handbook of Black Studies Page 9 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. in AAS and one from another department or program such as History, English, Anthropology, or Women's Studies. However, the university's plans to turn the Department of Africology at Temple University into another slave studies department were met with equally fierce resistance on the part of some faculty and students, who were able to defeat Temple' tactics. The students protested in many different venues (in local newspapers, on radio shows, at rallies and demonstrations on campus, etc.), and one faculty member filed a lawsuit against Temple over the appointment of the new chair. Temple lost the lawsuit badly and removed the chair and even- tually got a new dean. Thus, although the department has greatly suffered from the philosophical and ethical battles, it has nonetheless managed to maintain its Afrocentric orientation. However, the struggle at Temple should come as no surprise in a society that is so deeply racist as the Amer- ican one. The emphasis placed by the Department of Africology on African agency as well as our refusal to entertain any longer Europe as the sole source of all worthy ideas, were correctly perceived as major threats to European supremacy. Our insistence that our culture was rich enough to provide us with the categories needed to analyze our experiences was met with skepticism and contempt by the chair (and those who had hired her) who insisted that we were deficient and “lacked” Marxism, feminism, and European literary theo- ries, among others. They intended to help us remedy our deficiencies but failed miserably. Indeed, we cate- gorically refused to entertain the idea of African inadequacy and inferiority. This ongoing struggle over the power to define what it means to be African, however, should serve as a nec- essary reminder of the struggles and sacrifices that will be necessary to establish and maintain AAS programs that are relevant to our lives and that are in our best interest as a people.5 It is thus obvious to us, at this point, that to strengthen graduate AAS, the following must take place: 1. AAS must attain disciplinary status. It must be understood and treated as a full-fledged, independent dis- cipline. This can happen only if, as explained above, scholars involved in AAS accept Afrocentricity as their defining paradigm. Let us also note, however, that as we articulate in a more meaningful, positive, and con- ceptually clear manner the global African experience, AAS will automatically be in a better position to fulfill its early mandate—that is, to create a genuine conceptual space for African people—thus also contributing to genuine multicultural education in the American academic world (Banks, 2004; Karenga, 2003). 2. AAS programs must hire faculty members trained in AAS—that is, individuals who have committed them- selves to AAS as a discipline, who understand it as a discipline, and who will, therefore, be in the best position to nurture it and defend it as such. Handbook of Black Studies Page 10 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. 3. Graduate programs, especially Ph.D. programs, must be created to expand and strengthen the discipline. As this is done, new concepts and theories will emerge that will enable us to further our understanding of the world and of ourselves, thus enabling us to exercise greater agency. 4. The study of African people and events must be done under one academic umbrella. What is suggested here is the merging of what is usually referred to as African American, Caribbean, and AAS academic units in order to foster and bring about a genuine Pan-African consciousness and reality. The separate existence of African, Caribbean, and African American academic units is consistent with the Eurocentric historiography, which is incapable of accepting the fundamental Africanness of all Black people, while insisting that Europe brought about essential changes in our identity. 5. Every effort must be made to establish or reestablish genuine cooperation between the African community and AAS academic units. In many ways, Black intellectuals have turned their back on the very people who created positions for them, thus betraying one of the most critical mandates of AAS—that is, a commitment to the community. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that the involvement of the community will be very much necessary to obtain concessions from reluctant administrators. 6. Every attempt must be made to instill in the students a sense of duty and responsibility toward the commu- nity so that the sacrifices made for AAS to come into being will not have been in vain. Notes 1. The Information about Ph.D. programs cited in the present essay was obtained from one of the following Web sites: http://web-dubois.fas.harvard.edu/DuBois/AfroAm/Gradprogram.html http://www.umass.edu/afroam/gradcours.html http://aaas.ohio-state.edu http://violet.berkeley.edu/%7Eafricam http://www.yale.edu/afamstudies http://www.founders.howard.edu/african http://www.indiana.edu/~afrist/courses.html http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/depart-orvw.htm http://www.aaas.msu.edu Handbook of Black Studies Page 11 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. 2. Although I focus on Ph.D. rather than M.A. programs due to spatial constraints, M.A. programs, needless to say, also tend to define AAS as a field focusing on the Black experience rather than as a discipline. For ex- ample, in the Department of African and AAS at Ohio State University, which has the greatest number of fac- ulty, one finds the same definition of AAS as multidisciplinary: “Our multidisciplinary curricula include courses in literature, music, history, psychology, sociology, political science, economics, community development and the most extensive offering of African languages (Swahili, Yoruba, Hausa and Zulu) found at any university in the United States. The courses are taught by more than 18 full-time faculty members who each hold (sic) the doctoral degree in their respective disciplines.” Several of their faculty members have joint appointments. 3. I owe this term to Molefi Asante. I wish to make it clear that it is not my intention to suggest that all who teach in departments that seem to adhere to that paradigm necessarily practice it or believe in its validity. I am primarily interested in outlining philosophical assumptions, not in making sweeping and offensive gener- alizations about anyone because of their affiliation with a particular program. 4. It is now organized by Ankh, the Association of Nubian Kemetic Heritage created by Molefi Asante. The conference takes places in Philadelphia during the month of October. 5. In fact, much like one finds scholars involved in the Afrocentric paradigm in programs whose philosophy is blatantly Eurocentric, one also finds Eurocentric faculty within Afro-centric departments. One of my col- leagues at Temple, for example, obviously suffering from a severe case of what I call the “Driving-Miss-Daisy” Syndrome, insists that her students must show evidence of having a bank account, must acquaint themselves with the rules of golf, or produce a picture of themselves in a two-piece suit and a tie. References Asante, M. (1988). Afrocentricity. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, M. (1992). Kemet, Afrocentricity, and knowledge. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, M. (1998). The Afrocentric idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Banks, J. (2004). Multicultural education. In M. Asante & A. Mazama (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Black Studies (pp. 678–687). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Handbook of Black Studies Page 12 of 13 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Blaut, J. (2000). Eight Eurocentric historians. New York: Guilford. Eze, E. C. (Ed.). (1997). Race and the enlightenment: A reader. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Karenga, M. (1993). Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: Sankore University Press. Karenga, M. (2003). Afrocentricity and multicultural education: Concept, challenge, and contribution. In A. Mazama (Ed.), The Afrocentric paradigm (pp. 73–94). Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Mazama, A.The Afrocentric paradigm: Contours and definitions. Journal of Black Studies31 (2001). 387–405. Mazama, A. (Ed.). (2003). The Afrocentric paradigm. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Trevor-Roper, H. (1965). The rise of Christian Europe. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Sanderson, S. (1990). Social evolutionism. A critical history. London: Basil Blackwell. Smith, R. (1995). Racism in the post-civil rights era. Albany: State University of New York Press. Asante faculty paradigms departments discipline universities https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412982696 Handbook of Black Studies Page 13 of 13