After years of planning, Northwestern University is launching its doctoral program in African-American studies next month, making it only the seventh American university to offer a doctorate in the academic discipline.
Six students will enroll in the program, which will focus on three areas of research: expressive arts, literature and cultural studies; politics, society and policy; and history. Northwestern officials say that in addition, the program will have strong Black queer studies and diaspora studies components.
The creation of Northwestern’s doctoral program comes at a time when some have questioned the effectiveness of Black studies programs, which took hold on American college campuses in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dr. Richard Iton, an associate professor in African-American studies at Northwestern and its director of graduate studies, says the doctoral program will benefit from the universityt’s proximity to Chicago.
“Chicago is well known as a city rich in Black history and cultural institutions,” says Iton. “Within academia, it also is known as home to the largest continent of relatively young scholars working in the field today.”
In addition to Northwestern, Harvard University, Yale University, Temple University, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of California, Berkeley, and Michigan State University all offer doctoral programs in Black studies. Officials at each school say their individual programs differ in approach.
Harvard and Yale, for example, emphasize dual training in recognized traditional disciplines such as English, history or sociology. UMass-Amherst, meanwhile, trains students in two tracks: literary and cultural studies and history. Temple, which boasts the oldest doctoral program in the nation and well-known scholars like Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, focuses on Afrocentric ideologies and methodologies.
