It’s official! As of 1 July 2016, we will be the Department of African Cultural Studies.
We have taught African languages, literature, linguistics, and oral traditions for 50 years. As we celebrated a half-century of success in these fields, we reflected on the recent past and looked toward the future, crafting a new strategic plan. In the course of our discussions, and as new faculty joined the department, we recognized both the current capacity and the new opportunity to renew and transform our work, the better to pursue a more holistic view of African languages, cultural productions, and practices. Of course, language study will continue to be integral to what we do; however, linking it more explicitly to the study of culture will serve students well by more clearly showing the connections and intersections between the two.