Doctor of Philosphy in Africana Studies

The Ph.D. program in Africana Studies provides a firm base for graduate students to create new and innovative knowledge within the discipline as well as develop cutting-edge scholarship that contributes to the broader academy and public life.
The Department of Africana Studies at Brown University is the intellectual center for faculty and students interested in the critical study of the artistic, cultural, historical, literary and theoretical expressions of the peoples and cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora. The department has one of the leading faculties in the discipline. Members of the faculty have received many prestigious honors and awards such as the Gish Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship and the MacArthur Fellowship, in addition to successfully competing for fellowships and grants from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Science Foundation.

The Ph.D. program in Africana Studies provides a firm base for graduate students to create new and innovative knowledge within the discipline as well as develop cutting-edge scholarship that contributes to the broader academy and public life. Graduate students in the program receive rigorous training in the discipline of Africana Studies and the theories and methods of interdisciplinary work, with an acute focus on race, class, gender, and sexuality, while being critically conversant with the methods and theories of other academic disciplines. The goal of the program is to prepare students to become skilled and informed scholars and educators poised to make significant contributions to academic and nonacademic communities and initiate cultural and social policies with humanitarian objectives informed by critical thinking and global perspectives on social and human development.

The Africana Studies graduate program is organized around three areas of emphasis: 1) History, Politics, and Theory focuses on the institutional, theoretical, and material expressions of Africana culture, experience, and thought, 2) Literary, Expressive and Performance Cultures focuses on the critical study of visual culture, performance, and the literary arts that critique the contributions and (self) representations of people of African descent in global and contested societies, 3) Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality focuses on the cultural, ideological, political, and theoretical implications of feminist consciousness, practices, and theories, constructions of gender, and critical understandings and analyses of sexuality throughout the Africana world. Within these three areas, Africana Studies graduate students are able to explore the breadth and depth of the discipline while developing capacity and competence in distinct areas of scholarship.
TOEFL, the recommended minimum score for admission consideration is 577 on the paper-based test and 90 on the Internet-based test.
IELTS, the recommended minimum overall band score is 7.