Director of the Center for African American Studies: 
Marlon Smith, Ph.D.

African American Studies is an interdisciplinary approach discipline that highlights the philosophical, social, cultural, historical, and contemporary experiences and practices of people of African descent in the western world through its seven core academic fields.  Those fields include:  

• Black History
• Black Religion
• Black Politics/Political Science
• Black Social Organizations/Sociology
• Black Psychology
• Black Economics
• Black Creative Production (i.e. music, arts, literature, dance, etc.)

The Center for Africana & African American Studies (CAAAS) works to bridge the historical, theoretical, and intellectual offerings of the discipline with real life and global issues facing our world today through its campus programs, community initiatives, public scholarship, and academic research.  Please see The Center's website and social media platforms for information about current programs.

African American Studies minors integrate leading African American thinkers into their academic majors, as well as build valuable critical thinking and communication skills relevant for the 21st century workforce.  As such, USC Upstate African Americas Studies program:

Students completing the minor program will be introduced to seven major themes throughout their studies:

• Allows students to examine the complexities of the Black experience from different perspectives within their chosen majors.
• Highlights the social, political, economic, and cultural factors that help define Blackness both a social construct and lived reality.
• Helps students develop an interdisciplinary approach to the inquiry of the Blackness as a lived experience.
• Enable students to think critically about local, national, and global issues illuminated within Africana/African American Studies courses.
• Prepares students for life in an increasingly multi-ethnic and global society.