Africana Studies
By exploring the past and present, you’ll learn to make change with purpose.
Why Africana studies matters:
Africana studies empowers students to examine Black histories, cultures, and contributions across time and geography. It offers tools to better understand race, identity, inequality, and resilience while deepening students’ knowledge of how the past continues to shape the present. In a world facing complex challenges, this field prepares students to think critically, act ethically, and engage meaningfully across differences.
How Africana studies is taught at Muhlenberg:
The program blends coursework in history, literature, politics, and the arts with close faculty mentorship and community-based learning. Students from all backgrounds are invited to explore questions of power, belonging, and justice and to apply what they learn through research, dialogue, and civic engagement.
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The Africana studies curriculum invites students to explore Black life and thought through courses in history, literature, sociology, political science, and the arts. The program challenges students to critically examine systems of power, identity, and resistance across time and place.
- Students engage with topics such as:
African and African diasporic cultures - The legacies and ongoing realities of colonialism and slavery
- Movements for civil rights, liberation, and social change
- Representations of Blackness in media, literature, and popular culture
- The intersections of race with gender, sexuality, class, and global politics
Courses are often discussion-based and community-connected, encouraging students to apply theory to practice and to develop as ethical, informed thinkers prepared to lead in diverse professional settings or graduate study.
Africana studies at Muhlenberg is rooted in both scholarship and action. Students deepen their learning through campus and community events that amplify Black voices, explore current social justice movements, and invite dialogue across differences.
From lectures and performances to student-led teach-ins and advocacy efforts, the program fosters active engagement with contemporary issues and encourages students to see themselves as participants in meaningful change. Many courses also incorporate community-based learning, collaborative projects, or creative expression, connecting theory to lived experience.
This immersive, interdisciplinary approach helps students grow as empathetic leaders, ethical thinkers, and engaged citizens who are prepared to make an impact in any field they choose to pursue.
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Emanuela Kucik
I really enjoy making my classroom as interactive and student-centered as possible. Their input is important to me, and I think it creates a level of trust as well with the students.read about kucik's classroom
Powerful Outcomes
A Muhlenberg education sets you up for success. The liberal arts will hone your ability to think critically, communicate, and problem-solve, skills that are in high demand across all employment sectors.
Africana Studies News
Why I Study Questions of Well-Being
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies Tiffany Montoya explains how she chose to study philosophy and specifically the concept of flourishing.
READ MOREEmanuela Kucik Fosters Close Reading
Associate Professor Kucik views literature as a powerful agent for social change and the classroom as a space to build community.
READ MORE"Toward Diversity" Roundtable and Diane M. Williams '72 House Dedication
The community celebrated the legacy of one of the College’s most prolific activists with a panel discussion and dedication.
READ MORE