| African American Studies at UGA
The Institute for African American Studies (IAAS) at the University of Georgia (UGA) is located in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Courses in African American Studies were first offered in 1969. Over the past four decades, African American Studies at UGA has evolved into an Institute with an undergraduate major and undergraduate certificate program. The Institute currently has nine core faculty members, eight of whom are jointly appointed with departments in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and one of whom is jointly appointed in the College of Education.
Over the past decade and a half, the Institute has had strong and steady leadership. R. Baxter Miller, Professor of English, served as director from 1992-2006, and Kecia Thomas, Professor of Psychology, served as interim director in 2006-2007. In August 2007, Derrick Alridge, Associate Professor of Education, was appointed director.
The IAAS draws upon a variety of traditions in Africana Studies and engages fields across the humanities, social sciences, and education. The faculty, however, are united in its mission of promoting the study of people of African descent and their experiences throughout the Diaspora; promoting the field of African American Studies as a major academic discipline; serving as a repository for cultural and historical research; and promoting understanding of people of African descent. In addition, the Institute seeks to become one of the premier entities in the U.S. the field of African American Studies.
In pursuing its mission, the Institute offers an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to the field of African American Studies.
The principal objectives of the IAAS include:
- Providing students with a learning environment in which to appreciate the history, art, and culture of African Americans.
- Developing the critical and analytic tools of inquiry for human enlightenment and informed citizenry.
- Illuminating the history and culture of African Americans across the the African Diaspora and in global contexts;
- Developing institutional research skills vital for success in graduate and professional studies.
The IAAS vision, like its mission and objectives, is grounded in the black intellectual tradition. Building on the ideas of intellectuals and scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Langston Hughes, Carter G. Woodson, Ida B. Wells, and others who believed in the systematic study of the black experience, the IAAS seeks to become a major institute for research on black life and experience within the next decade. Faculty have already engaged this vision by conducting stellar scholarship across the disciplines on the black experience. Their work has been published in the Journal of Black Studies, Phylon, Journal of African American History, Southern Literary Journal, Langston Hughes Review, African American Review, Callaloo, The Catholic Historian, Journal of Negro Education, and numerous other prestigious academic journals. |
