Afrocentricity and the Academy

Afrocentricity is a philosophical and theoretical perspective that emphasizes the study of Africans as subjects, not as objects, and is opposed to perspectives that attempt to marginalize African thought and experience. Afrocentricity became popular in the l980s as scores of African American and African scholars adopted an Afrocentric orientation to information.
The editor of this collection argues that as scholars embark upon the 21st century, they can no longer be myopic in their perceptions and analyses of race. The seventeen essays examine a wide range of variations on the Afrocentric paradigm in the areas of history, literature, political science, philosophy, economics, women’s studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies and social policy. The essays, written by professors, librarians, students and others in higher education who have embraced the Afrocentric perspective, are divided into four sections: “Pedagogy and Implementation,” “Theoretical Assessment,” “Critical Analysis,” and “Pan Africanist Thought.”

James L. Conyers, Jr., is a winner of the Cheikh Anta Diop Ankh Award for Distinguished Research in the Discipline of African American Studies. He is the director of the African American Studies Program and university professor of African American Studies at the University of Houston.

Edited by James L. Conyers, Jr.
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 320
Bibliographic Info: tables, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2003
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1542-7
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8325-9
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1

Part 1: Pedagogy and Implementation

African American Achievement: Using Critical Pedagogy to Critique a Plan Intending to Address Educational Disparities

Carol Lloyd      5

The Black Studies Paradigm: The Making of Scholar Activists

Terry Kershaw      27

The Afrocentric Idea in Education

Mole. Kete Asante      37

Afrocentricity and the Arrangement of Knowledge

Kathleen E. Bethel      50

Part 2: Theoretical Assessment

W.E.B. Du Bois and/as Africana Critical Theory: Pan-Africanism, Critical Marxism, and Male Feminism

Reiland Rabaka      67

A Theoretical Analysis of Persuasive Tactics Used by Frederick Douglass in “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”

Jason J. Thompson and Reynaldo Anderson      113

The Philosophy of the Black Power Movement Using Ntu as a Theoretical Construct

Paul Easterling      123

African American Intellectual History: Philosophy and Ethos

Malachi Crawford      129