About

Committed to Excellence

The center offers majors in Black Studies a rigorous and broad approach to the discipline, which includes a comprehensive background in Black American history and literature. Majors are expected to acquire a grasp of significant literature on race and gender issues and to think critically about the Black experience and related fields of knowledge.

Black Studies students should be able to write using various disciplinary frameworks to place Black life, experiences, and culture at the center of their analyses or to interrogate societal dynamics that shape and are shaped by Black life and culture. To do this, our students’ writing might include personal narratives, formal essays, or theoretical discourses. Our aim is to support students in selecting the mode of written expression and developing the tools to utilize those modes of expression in ways that reveal, articulate, and analyze Black life and culture and the relevant dynamics of society.

The Black Studies Center has a well-established tradition and commitment to providing a range of services to the University and the broader community. It is a resource center open to the University and the Granville-Newark communities. It encourages other academic units to develop Black Studies related courses and to integrate Black Studies material into existing courses. It supports the University in promoting multiculturalism.

The Center is dedicated to stimulating research among faculty and students. While faculty members affiliated with the Center are engaged in their own studies, the Center encourages cross-disciplinary collaborative research. It creates forums and seminars on critical Black issues and provides mechanisms by which faculty, students and guest lecturers share knowledge and exchange ideas.

What do Black Studies Majors do After Denison?

A liberal arts education allows our graduates to go on to many varied careers. Many continue on to education, business, social services, urban development and postgraduate education in professional programs such as: law, seminary, educational policy and leadership, clinical psychology, social work, etc.

Mission Statement

The Black Studies Center is committed to excellence in education, service and research. As an academic unit, the Center is dedicated to providing an interdisciplinary Black Studies Program designed to investigate the Black experience in the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. This program draws on the expertise of faculty members in all four academic divisions of the College humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and the fine arts. It encourages teaching across disciplines and academic divisions. It is consistent with the liberal arts philosophy of exploring issues fundamental to the development of a broadly educated person and the creation of a humane spirit.

Departmental Guidelines

The Black Studies Program invites students to investigate the Black experience as it manifests in Africa, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other parts of the African diaspora. While the Program’s primary focus is the study of the Black experience in North America, fundamental to this enterprise is a recognition of the triangular relationship between Africa, the Caribbean and the United States.

The Program seeks to serve the general needs of the college by providing course offerings across the full range of academic divisions. At the same time, it is designed to meet the specialized interests of students through an interdisciplinary major and minor. Therefore, many appropriate courses are found under the rubric of other departments. Black Studies majors and minors are encouraged to complete some portion of their undergraduate education abroad; many off-campus study opportunities available through Denison are relevant to Black Studies and help majors and minors gain global perspectives and experiences.

Through our courses, we teach students to write using various disciplinary frameworks to place Black life, experiences, and culture at the center of their analyses or to interrogate societal dynamics that shape, and are shaped, by Black life and culture. To do this, our students’ writing might include personal narratives, formal essays, or theoretical discourses. Our aim is to support students in selecting the mode of written expression and developing the tools to utilize those modes of expression in ways that reveal, articulate, and analyze Black life and culture and the relevant dynamics of society.

The Black Studies curriculum is administered by a faculty committee and the director of the Center for Black Studies. This committee reviews and approves the educational plans developed by majors in consultation with the director of the Center for Black Studies. Students wishing to major or minor in Black Studies should contact the director of the program.