Under the Media's Radar: Princeton's Program in African American Studies Boasts Its Own All-Star Cast

Hamilton, Kendra, Black Issues in Higher Education

High-profile African American studies departments like Harvard's with certified media stars like Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. usually tend to grab the lion's share of the headlines. But focusing solely on departments and their "stars" offers a pretty distorted picture of what's happening "on the ground" in the field of African American studies, observers say.

In other words, the view is pretty different from the vantage point of the African American studies programs.

It's an indisputable fact that departmental status represents the pinnacle of academic success--in both scholarly and institutional terms. But it's also a fact that African American studies remains a discipline dominated by programs, whether they focus solely on the American experience or include African diaspora and African studies: Afro-American, African American, Africana, Afro-Caribbean, Black Atlantic and just plain Black studies programs.

Nationally, that boils down to a telling statistic: There are only eight departments offering the Ph.D. in African American studies, history or …

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Publication information: Article title: Under the Media's Radar: Princeton's Program in African American Studies Boasts Its Own All-Star Cast. Contributors: Hamilton, Kendra - Author. Magazine title: Black Issues in Higher Education. Volume: 20. Issue: 17 Publication date: October 9, 2003. Page number: 32+. © 1999 Cox, Matthews & Associates. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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