Why Africology? A critical review of debates about how to name the discipline

Authors

• Victor Oguejiofor Okafor, Eastern Michigan University

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2023

Department/School

African American Studies

Publication Title

Transformations in Africana Studies: History, Theory, and Epistemology

Abstract

Africology, as a nomenclatural alternative, exudes a more inclusive, institutional, and aesthetic appeal, and seems much more marketable and much more capable of debunking an erroneous notion that African American Studies exists for the consumption of only black students. One of the liberal Arts areas of study or disciplines that became institutionalized within the United States’ higher educational system by mid-twentieth century is widely known as Black Studies. The first department of Black Studies was established at San Francisco State College in 1968. Since then, more than 300 centers, programs, and departments of Black Studies have emerged across US universities. Cultural pluralism advocates for a social order in which the constituent communities of the nation are allowed to co-exist on their own cultural terms, not on the exclusive terms of the majority culture, although cultural diffusion appears inescapable in a multicultural milieu.

Comments

V. O. Okafor is a faculty member in EMU's Department of Africology and African American Studies.

Recommended Citation

Okafor, V. O. (2023). Why Africology? A critical review of debates about how to name the discipline. In A. Oyebade (Ed.), Transformations in Africana studies: History, theory, and epistemology (pp. 30–44). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003293897-4