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Africana Studies

Overview of Africana Studies

Africana Studies, Black/African-American Studies or Africology (US education), is the multidisciplinary approach to the study of: the anthropological, historical, literary, political, pyschological, theological (religious studies), sociological study of people from the Continent of Africa, the United States, and the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora. 

At the University of Notre Dame, "..Academic excellence and social responsibility are the twin pillars of Africana Studies (originally Black Studies) from its beginning in 1968."   The Hesburgh Libraries provides the following resources that not only support the undergraduate program in Africana Studies, but resources that can support the information and research needs of graduate students, faculty, visiting scholars, and staff. 

 

Library of Congress Classifications for Africana Studies

The interdisciplinary nature of Africana/African American studies, works will be found in many areas of the Hesburgh Libraries's Collection under a variety of subject headings. Below are some of the Library of Congress Subject Headings that relate to African American Studies. Note: This is not an exhaustive listing.  You can find more at this link to the LC Classification Outline

Africa
  • Politics and Government
  • United States
  • African Diaspora
African Americans
  • History
  • Social Conditions
  • Intellectual Life
Caribbeans
  • West Indies
  • French Guiana
  • Activism

Resources to consider at the beginning the Research Process:

News and Popular Press

Popular press, newspapers and magazines help researchers identify coverage of pivotal moments of events and trace public discourse on various issues that do not reach the level of analysis necessary for scholarly work. However, the results of utilizing these resources can provide leads (keywords, subject words, etc.) to access the Hesburgh Library catalog (books, e-books, peer-review, scholarly) resources.  

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Dictionaries are most often collections of words in one or more specific languages, usually arranged in alphabetical order, providing information like word meanings, usage, etymology, and, when they contain more than one language, translations. Some dictionaries include information more commonly found in encyclopedias.  Encyclopedias are collections of information on terms, figures, eras, locations also arranged alphabetically, and, alongside definitions of terms, they also include more in-depth general information on a topic. Encyclopedias can be general or subject-specific.