The African Diaspora & The World

Have you ever thought about the experience of people of African descent around the world? What about in Brazil? Or Haiti?

Have you considered questions of gender or race or age or class when discussing your own experience as a woman of African descent?

Ever heard of a South African Woman known as the “Hottentot Venus”?

Did you ever consider that as a young black woman YOU are an agent of knowledge? And can make a REAL change in this world?

These questions represent some of the intriguing, fascinating and empowering information you will gather in this ADW course. Be prepared to discover new things about yourself and your communities. Be prepared to think critically and view your world with new eyes. Be prepared to become true scholars able to voice your own thoughts effectively. Get ready for an unforgettable journey!

ADW is a two semester sequence that is both interdisciplinary and gender informed. It provides a common experience that represents to new Spelman students essential issues about academic approach, sense of identity, and values consonant with the College's Statement of Purpose, especially in its institutional goals and behavioral expectations.

This course seeks to provide you with a formal introduction to your own background and culture; the connection of that background and culture to those of other communities of African Diaspora; the relationship between this comprehensive experience and developments in the larger world; and the fostering of a process whereby students learn to reflect critically upon methods and strategies of addressing contemporary political, economic, and social maladies.  

Spelman College is uniquely poised to prepare women of the African Diaspora to interact in the new millennium. The course communicates the values and concepts central to Spelman College: sisterhood, leadership, a love of learning; sensitivity to cultural differences, the use of diverse methods of scholarly investigation, and the association between learning and social change. Through exposure to such an approach, students will comprehend that there are many ways of knowing, and that such ways can be integrated to advantage in confronting the challenges they inherit as women of the African Diaspora.