Africana Studies Minor
Africana Studies at WKU draws on courses in numerous disciplines and in the interdisciplinary field of Africana Studies. Students study, analyze, and develop a comprehensive understanding of the rich and varied experiences of African descended persons and communities, and cultural, social, religious, and political forms. The skills gained through the program are well suited for advanced study at the undergraduate and graduate levels and for jobs in government, community organizations, education, and business. Students will find an empowering learning environment and strong sense of community among students in the Africana Studies program.
The Africana Studies Minor consists of 21 hours and provides students multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives on the experiences of African Americans and the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. The Africana Studies Minor provides the opportunity for students to study, analyze and develop a comprehensive understanding of African American experiences in ways that both link and differentiate past and present circumstances in the African Diaspora.
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Lamont Jack Pearley
Folklore MA, Boardcasting Major, Africana Studies Minor, Folklore Minor
Tani Washington
History, Africana Studies Minor, 2024
Tani Washington graduated in Spring 2024 with a double-major in International Affairs and History and a double minor in Africana Studies and Economics. In 2024, Tani was the first ever WKU student to be named a Gaither Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. One of 16 fellows nationally, Tani will work during her fellowship year with a senior research fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP)’s Africa program, based in Washington, D.C., that provides analysis and insights on the economic, technological, and transnational issues shaping Africa’s future. The CEIP is one of the most important foreign policy think tanks in the world.
Tani’s intellectual interests have engaged multiple aspects of the Black experience in the United States and abroad. As an intern at Virginia Public Media, she wrote about the socioeconomic determinants of dementia care for people of color. As an intern at Ujima, the National Center on Violence Against Black Women, she conducted research on health policy at federal, state, and local levels. And at WKU, she produced a 4-episode podcast series on diasporic communities with WKU Forensics teammate Joseph Eberle. As a student researcher, Tani focused on speculative history of the African Diaspora, racialized theories of democratization, and nation building in the African context. Studying abroad on the WKU Faculty-led program to Senegal in Summer 2023, during which she met think tank scholars and former government officials, brought together many of these threads that now connect her to an extraordinary opportunity to practice policy analysis at Carnegie.
Following her Gaither Junior Fellowship, Tani plans to pursue graduate education.
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