Quito J. Swan Brings Global Links to Africana Studies
As the new director of the CCAS Africana Studies Program, Swan strives to make connections—across disciplines, movements and oceans.
About
GW’s Africana Studies Program is rooted in student protests for Black Studies since the 1960s, which often occurred in response to racist incidents on and off campus. With support from faculty like Alison Brooks (Anthropology), Miriam Dow (English), and James Oliver Horton (History and American Studies), an Africana Minor was established in 1995. These founders committed to developing a program that cut across national and disciplinary boundaries and to creating an intellectual space where Africa and the African diaspora would be studied from multiple geographical points and academic perspectives. In 2012, a BA program centered on the African Diaspora was formed. GW’s current Africana program is theoretically driven by a focus on the Black Radical Tradition (BRT), which is a theoretical paradigm of Black studies that explores the collective consciousness of global Black freedom struggles. Africana’s students can explore the BRT via courses drawn from English, Music, Anthropology, American Studies, History, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and other related fields.
Immersed in the internationally and culturally diverse city of Washington, D.C., students are encouraged to make connections between the classroom and the larger community. This includes internships with institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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