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In United States education, Africana studies, Africology^[1] or Black studies is the study of the histories, politics and cultures of peoples of African origin both in Africa and in the African diaspora. It is thus the sum of the fields of African studies and African diaspora studies (Afro-Latin American and African American studies).

Africana Studies departments at many major universities grew out of the Afrocentric "Black Studies" departments formed in the 70s. Rather than focusing on black topics in the African diaspora (often exclusively African American topics) these reformed departments aimed to expand the field to encompass all of the African diaspora. They also sought to better align themselves with other University departments finding continuity and compromise between the radical Afrocentricity of the past decades and the multicultural scholarship found in many fields today.^[2][3]

According to Robert Harris Jr, there have been four stages in the development of Africana studies: from the 1890s until the Second World War numerous organizations developed to analyze the culture and history of African peoples (African studies). In the second stage the focus turned to black Americans (Afro-American studies). In the third stage Afrocentric study programs were begun to be institutionalized as "Black studies". The fourth stage involved the theoretical refinement of the discipline and a more sophisticated analysis and interpretation of the interactions between these fields, under the new name "Africana studies".^[3]

The term "Africana studies" seems to be derived from the name of the "Africana Studies and Research Center" founded under James Turner in 1969 as a result of the civil rights movement. Studia Africana, subtitled "An International Journal of Africana Studies" was published by the Department for African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati in a single issue in 1977 (an unrelated journal called Studia Africana is published by the Centro de Estudios Africanos, Barcelona, since 1990). The "International Journal of Africana Studies" (ISSN 1056-8689) has been appearing since 1992, published by the National Council for Black Studies.

• International Journal of Africana Studies - Designed to interrogate and analyze the lived experiences of Africana people.
• The International Journal of African Historical Studies - Articles on all aspects of Africa's history from prehistoric archaeology to the present problems of the continent, including interactions between Africa and the Afro-American peoples of the New Worlds.
• Africana - Journal of ideas on Africa and the Diaspora.
• Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography - Coverage includes any aspect of Africa, its peoples, their homes, cities, towns, districts, states, countries, regions, including social, economic sustainable development, creative literature, the arts, and the Diaspora.
• Africana Online: Journal of the Africana Center for Cultural Literacy and Research

1. ^ Africology and You University of Milwaukee
2. ^ Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies By Delores P. Aldridge, Carlene Young. Lexington Books 2000. ISBN 0739105477
3. ^ ^{a b} The Intellectual and Institutional Development of Africana Studies by Robert l. Harris Jr. from The Black Studies Reader By Jacqueline Bobo, Cynthia Hudley, Claudine Michel Page 15 ISBN 0415945542

• Multiculturalism
• Afrocentricity
• Encyclopedia Africana

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