The interdisciplinary major in Africana Studies (AFST) employs rigorous interdisciplinary and comparative approaches for the study of over one billion people of African descent, a fifth whom are in the Diaspora. The central mission of the program is to prepare students for lifelong learning, graduate study in various fields, and careers in private and public organizations across the globe. The AFST curriculum engages students in a critical examination of the intellectual, political, economic and cultural challenges and achievements of Africans and African-descended peoples. The study of these diverse and dynamic traditions does much more than embracing the centrality of race. It also encompasses imperial, national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious currents and intersections in such far-flung settings as Africa, North America, the Caribbean Basin, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. The Program draws on wide-ranging fields of inquiry that include history, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, religion, literature, music, drama, dance, film, and the visual arts. Through coursework that integrates and at often transcends disciplinary knowledge, students will learn to appreciate the specificity of Africa and its offshoots, the ways in which local and global forces interacted to shape a shared identity of Blackness as well as community-specific identities, and the trajectories of syncretism and other forms of intercultural exchange.