In 1978, African American Studies became the first program to offer an M.A., and in 1994, it launched a Ph.D. program. The program has grown and flourished, and I am confident that, as a department, it will continue to thrive in the years ahead. It will enable us to expand and grow in new and exciting directions. We are delighted. The Yale African American Studies Program has always been strongly interdisciplinary.
All faculty members hold joint appointments with other departments or programs.
While making a few faculty appointments of its own, the new department will maintain its interdisciplinary character and continue to share faculty with American Studies, Anthropology, Economics, English, French, History, History of Art, Political Science, Sociology and Theater Studies, as well as with the Divinity School and the School of Medicine. This confirms the breadth of our strengths in both the humanities and social sciences and commends our vision of interdisciplinary study of the complex Black Atlantic world. On a personal note, I cannot help but feel that this is something of a memorial to Charles T. Davis, Sylvia A. Boone, and John W. Blassingame , our deceased colleagues who did so much, as scholars and as officers of the program, to bring on this historic moment.