The African American Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs provide current graduate students the opportunity to work with our nationally and internationally recognized faculty who share their passion for research in the classroom and throughout the Purdue intellectual community with either a concentration or certificate.
Required AAS Courses - 6.0 Credit Hours
AAS 57400: Research Methods in African American Studies (Credits: 3.0)
This course covers research techniques used by researchers to observe and to interpret scholarly investigation on race, class and gender from an African American perspective. It is envisioned as one of three required courses for students studying African American Studies at the graduate level. In investigating topics involving race, class, and gender from an African American perspective, students will gain some experience utilizing African American Studies research methods. The course is taught in a seminar format.
AAS 57500: Theories of African and African American Studies (Credits: 3.0)
This course addresses the development of an African American intellectual tradition. The course will span disciplines and swathes of time in order to understand how scholars not only created new ideas but developed theories that shaped and changed academic inquiry. The objective of the course is to provide a history of the black intellectual tradition, which will then provide an important perspective for use in other course work. Upon its completion, students will gain understanding of major theories, theorists, and intellectual debates surrounding the field of African American Studies. Taught in a seminar format the course, students will be expected to read deeply, prepare seriously for class, and write a final paper of near publication quality.
Electives - 6.0 Credit Hours
- AAS 59000: Directed Reading in African American Studies (Credits: 1.0 to 4.0)
- ENGL 59700: Contemporary Black Feminist Literature (Credits: 3.0)
- HIST 65100: Reading Seminar in American History [when the focus is Race/Civil Rights in the US] (Credits: 1.0 to 3.0)
- LC 60100: Seminar in Latin America and the African Diaspora (Credits: 3.0)
- POL 52000: Special Topics in Public Policy [when the focus is on race and public policy] (Credits: 3.0)
- POL 61100: Research Seminar in American Government and Politics [when the focus is on race and American politics] (Credits: 3.0)
- SOC 61100: Social Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender (Credits: 3.0)
Additional Electives Based on Area of Expertise
- HIST 59400: Afro-American Thought & Ideology
- ENGL 55700: 19th-Century African American Narrative
- ENGL 58300: US Ethnic/Multicultural Literature [when the focus is African American Literature]
- ENGL 67200: Seminar in Women’s Literature and Feminist Theory [when offered as African American Women Writers]
- PHIL 54200: Rationality and Relativism: African American Perspectives
- SOC 51500: Black Americans
- WGSS 68100: Black Sexualities