Affiliated Programs
Black World Studies
The Black World Studies Program (BWS) at Miami University originated in 1976. The program offers both a major and a minor. The teaching and research of BWS focuses primarily on the experiences of people of African descent in Africa, United States, and through out the world. The Program, housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, offers courses, summer workshops, and research from the social sciences and humanities, fine arts, education, journalism, and law. Core faculty and affiliates from departments throughout the university participate in the Program’s activities. The curriculum emphasizes the historical and contemporary status of black people in Africa and the Diaspora in terms of social, political, and economic institutions. BWS prepares students to apply critical thinking skills which emphasize creative writing, problem solving, research, and service learning.
Black World Studies is concerned with people of African descent in a global context, both in Africa and its Diaspora. It is especially concerned with both historical and contemporary production of Black Experience(s). It deals with the geographical, cultural, political, economic, psychological, literary and communicative aspects of the Black experience, globally. The Program stresses the changing construction of race and its implications in global relations of power and inequality. BWS is interdisciplinary in its approach to understanding the Black World experience. The emphasis of BWS is on Africa and its Diaspora. The critical perspective of the program prepares students for the diversity of the global community in which we live.
For more information about the Black World Studies program at Miami, please visit the BWS Website.