Africana Studies - Professor Tillotson is one of the best teachers at Pitt. Attend the lectures PDF

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Professor Tillotson is one of the best teachers at Pitt. Attend the lectures regularly and write down everything on his powerpoints as it will be verbatim on the exams....

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Africana Studies 

Born out of struggle and resistance

Time Period 

The 1960s served as both a context and encouragement for the emergence of a student movement which linked itself to these larger struggles for social change both on campus and off campus

Four Basic Thrusts of the Student Movement  The Civil Rights Movement  The Free Speech Movement  The Anti Vietnam War Movement  The Black Power Movement Civil Rights Movement  Break Down Barriers of legal segregation in public accommodations  Achieve quality and justice for black Americans  Organize black Americans into a self conscious force capable of defining, defending, and advancing The Free Speech Movement  A largely white student led protest against the rigid, arbitrary, restrictive and unresponsive character of the university Anti-War Movement  The general student protest against the Vietnam war The Black Power Movement  Ushered a new dialog about power in society and the university  Stressed the importance of self determination, in three areas; culture, politics, and economics and also emphasized the need for power in achieving and maintaining it  Relevant education: an education that was meaningful to the students useful to the community and reflective of the realities of society and the world Settlement of the demands of the black student union  Demand: That all black studies courses being taught through various departments be immediately part of the black studies department and that all the instructions Conditions for emergence  Disappointment with civil rights and an unwillingness to wait for outside assistance, which was linked to calls for militancy and black controlled education

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The rise of groups such as the black panthers in which individuals could learn the intricacies of the movement tactics and forge strong identifications with nationalist values The creation of foot soldiers, the newly admitted black students, who were willing to be active protagonists on college campuses

Philosophical Considerations of black studies  The critical and persistent truth and meaning in human history and social reality from an African vantage point  A depthful intellectual grasp and appreciation of the ancient, rich, varied and instructive character of the African initiative and experience in the world and the esstianl relevance of the African culture as a unique culture  A rigorous intellectual challenge and alternative to established ways of viewing social human reality  A moral critique and social policy correctives for social constraints in human freedoms and development  The cultivation of commitment and contribution to the historical project of creating a just society Operationalization’s  Discipline: a specific branch of knowledge  Concept: unit of knowledge  Paradigm: model of an idea or ideas  Theory: a set of inter-related suppositions that seek to explain phenomenon  Methodology: system of methods and principles  Inter disciplinary: The combining of two or more academic fields for synthesis of information Defining The Discipline 6 phases of cohesion  Protest phase  Institutionalization phase  Developmental  Consolidation  Operational paradigm  Schools of thought What is Black Studies  Black studies is the critical and systematic study of the thoughts and practice of people of African decent in their current and historical unfolding Diaspora  The dispersion or scattering of people with a common origin Pan African

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Defined as: all Africans and people of African descent

Sesh  Thinkers – who understood themselves in both moral and social terms and constantly expressed a commitment to using their knowledge and skills in the service of the people ex: MLK, Malcolm X African Conception of knowledge  Values knowledge not just for knowledge sake, but rather knowledge for human sake A relevant education- an education for black studies advocates was an education, which was meaning useful and reflective of the realities of society and the world Relevance of the Discipline  The need to solve the pressing problems of the black community, society and the world Eurocentric- privileging European people and culture at the expense of the culture and lives of people of color The basic Objectives  To teach the black experience in its historical and current unfolding  To assemble and create a body of knowledge which was contributive to intellectual and political emancipation  To create intellectuals who were dedicated to community service and development  The cultivation, maintenance and continuous expansion of a mutually beneficial relationship between the campus and the community  To establish and reaffirm its position in the academy as a discipline essential to the educational project of a quality education Service Learning  Service projects which are engaged in social responsibility that pursue a just society and the expanded possibilities of a reasonable world Grounds of Relevance  It is a definitive contribution to humanities understanding of itself  Contribution to U.S. society’s understanding of itself  Contribution to the universities realization of its claim and challenge to teach the whole truth, or something as close to it as humanly possible  A contributor to the rescue and reconstruction of black history  A critical contribution to a new social science  Contributes to the development of a socially conscious black intelligentsia and professional stratum  Vital contribution to the critique, resistance, and reversal of the progressive Eurpeanization of human conscious and culture Mission and goals of the discipline

Three Central Areas  Cultural grounding o Is the foundation and framework for black studies  Academic Excellence o Not only the amassing of data but the development of an interpretive capacity to understand and translate the African initiative and experience in the world  Social responsibility o Using knowledge to improve the human condition and enhance the human prospect Tuesday 9/5 Developmental initiatives Focus   

Professional organizations The Afrocentric Black

Professional Organizations African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA   

The AHSA emerged from a year of discussions within the black caucus of the African Studies Associations (ASA) They decided to form a new organization to address the needs of black scholars and to correct the teaching of Euro Africa rather than Africa in U.S. colleges and universities The AHSA sought to correct the Eurocentric version of Historiography done for political purposes and to address the misinterpretation, manufacturing, and manipulation of African reality in intellectual work

The Beginning The first convention was held in June 1969 at Federal City College in Washington DC. The founding president of AHSA was Dr. John Henrik Clarke. AHSA- African Heritage Studies Association  Committed to the preservation, interpretation and creative presentation of the historical and cultural heritage of African people both on the ancestral soil of Africa and the Diaspora 

Functions of the AHSA  Ground and context for scholarly encounter and exchange  An organization role for other professional organizations

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An advocacy org. for black interests in education in general as well as on larger social issues

AHSA Fundamental Goals  To examine every aspect and approach to the history and culture of African people in this country and throughout the world  To project influence into every organization that relates to Africans and people of African descent  To challenge and question all who claim authority on African life and history to use African history to effect a world union of African people  To establish a new frame of reference in all matters relating to Africa (meaning) a critical pan-Africanist perspective which stresses the interrelatedness of African people and thee linkage of the intellectual with the practical  To define African Heritage and to put the components of this heritage together to weld an instrument of liberation National Council of Black Studies (NCBS)  Founded in the 1976, its first chairperson was Dr. Bertha Maxwell Article II of the NCBS Constitution 

The purpose of NCBS is to be an accrediting body and to promote and strengthen academic and Community programs in the area of Black Studies

Future Direction and Goals of NCBS  Continued Production of discipline literature and organizational documents  Ongoing and expanded grant and research proposals for development of projects for the discipline, faculty, students and community  Continuing organizational professionalization and reorganization for improved performance and service  Increasing and enriching contexts for discourse and exchange i.e. conferences, symposia and workshops NCBS- National council of Black studies Thursday 9/7 Structural Frameworks and Developments in Africana Studies Afrocentricity  Dr. Molefi Asante Ph.D.  (Book) Afrocentric Theory

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Emphasizes location and centeredness, African agency and African frame of reference in research methodology and intellectual production

First  Dr. Molefi Asante was the developer of the first Ph.D. program in African American Studies in the world…at Temple University in 1988 Ideology  A set of beliefs, values, and assumptions, held on faith alone and generally unrelated to empirical facts, that act as guidelines to or prescriptions for individual or group behavior The use of Afrocentricity vs. afrocentrism  To stress its intellectual value as distinct from its detractors ideological usage  To distinguish it from Eurocentrism  (Afrocentricity is not built on or conceived as a denial of worth and value to others  To establish it as a systematic quality of thought and practice Afrocentric Theory  Placing African ideals at the center of any analysis that involves African Culture and behavior  Centeredness: the groundedness of observation in behavior in ones own historical experiences  A theoretical framework or methodology which stresses African agency- it treats Africans as active subjects of history rather than objects or passive victims Intellectual Conceptions of Afrocentricity  African culture is critical to understanding society and the human condition  As a methodological orientation Afrocentricity contends that the most effective way of studying and understanding African people is from their own perspective  A way of approaching and interpreting data Books to know (the quartet)  Afrocentricity, the theory of social change. Molefi Asante  Kemet, Afrocentricity and knowledge. Molefi Kete Asante  The Afrocentric Idea. Molefi Kete Asante  An Afrocentric Manifesto. Molefi Kete Asante Black Women Studies  The intellectual and practical struggles waged by black women in the discipline itself because Black women scholars produced and insisted upon alternative visions

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The key role that black women played in developing the two major professional organizations of the discipline-African heritage studies association (AHSA) Nation council of black studies (NCBS) The creative tension and discourse between black womanists and feminists and white feminists and black studies and white women studies in the academy Inquiry and ongoing criticism of relations into the black freedom movement

Black Studies response to Multiculturalism  Another attempt to dilute and divert the legitimate claims and demands of African people and maintain the dominant worldview  A superficial cultural diversion from more serious issues of wealth and power  A continuation of the struggle for a quality education Afrocentric Conception of Multiculturalism  Mutual respect for each people and culture  Mutual respect for each peoples right and responsibility to speak their own special truth and make their own unique contribution to society and the world Classical African Studies  The emergence in the 1980’s of increased intellectual and academic stress on the study of classical African Civilizations, especially Egypt Association for the study of classical African civilizations (ASCAC)  (Founded at)  Southwest College in Los Angeles in February 1984 Cheikh Anta Diop  Pioneered the African focus on Egypt as a classical African civilization Research Method of Cheikh Anta Diop  Physical Anthropology-iconography, melanin dosage tests, osteological (bone) measurement and blood group tests  Self definition of the Egyptians who called themselves kmtyw or kemetiu (black people) stemming from km- the ancient Egyptian word for black  Reports of Greek and Latin witnesses such as Herodotus, Aristotle, Lucian and others who described the Egyptians Tuesday 9/12 The organic tradition WEB Dubois Born February 23, 1868 great Barrington, MA Transition- august 27th, 1963 Ghana (west Africa) Education- Fisk university BA 1888. Harvard University

Organic thinker  A scholar who is deeply concerned with social conditions… NOT ABSTRACTIONS and how their scholarly work can change the nature of society and transform the day to day reality of people who do not have a heard voice WEB DuBois  

The profound importance of his scientific achievements were that they laid the materialist foundation for the study of race and racial oppression Wrote The souls of black folk written in 1903

Democracy in America- Written by Alexis De Tocqueville (Book) The Philadelphia Negro 1899  Initiated the field of urban sociology and advanced empirical sociology itself  Empirically verified the social and class origins of poverty and inequality  Quantitative demonstrated that black inequality at that time (end of 19th century) was a creation of poverty and lack of access to resources, rather than the so called innate inferiority of black Americans Pragmatism  Human knowledge was severely limited to immediate experience  Pragmatism maintained that the possibilities for changing the world were restricted to the limitations of human knowledge  There were, as a consequence, no revolutionary alternatives to poverty, exploitation and oppression Organic thinking results Dubois  Niagara Movement: a black American civil rights organization founded in 1905  Opposed to racial segregation and disenfranchisement  Opposed accommodation and conciliation NAACP: the national association for the advancement of colored people  Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nations oldest and largest civil rights organization o 3 philosophical zones (subheading) o British empiricism- knowledge arise from experience and skepticism o Subjective idealism- meta physical doctrine that only minds and mental o Logical positivism- the idea that observational evidence is indispensible Du Bois Response to Pragmatism

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For the young Du Bois pragmatists limitations on knowledge and transforming the world were intellectually unacceptable Du Bois argued that the ethical and moral imperative was determined on the basis of what actions they led to

The Duboisian Ethic  The view that he would apply the principles of the social sciences “to the social and economic rise of the negro people” The Atlanta Studies  One of the most significant bodies of scientific research on black people at the beginning of the twentieth century Colonialism  A specific form of exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe The Berlin Conference  November 1884- February 1885  Called for by Portugal  Organized by German chancellor, Otto Von Bismark  Instituted Geometric boundaries that divided Africa into 50 countries Control of African Territory  Britain and France owned the most territory The Berlin Doctrine and Acts  The doctrine of the spheres of influence by which Europe established its rights to control African Coastline  The doctrine of effective occupation by which Europe established the idea that it could occupy an entire country by controlling the commerce along the coast...