Program Overview

A Graduate Certificate in African Diaspora Studies in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will introduce students to the current scholarship on the African Diaspora as well as a basic grounding in the historical, political, literary, and cultural responses of African peoples to their diasporic conditions.  A successful recipient of a Graduate Certificate in African Diaspora Studies from UMass Amherst would be expected to have acquired the following knowledge: 

  • Introduction to the complex political and historical development of Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora in the Americas;
  • Introduction to conceptual strategies and critical apparati for engaging with a variety of discourses on the African Diaspora;
  • Working knowledge of issues, themes, and concepts informing the current scholarship in African Diaspora Studies, especially a critical engagement topics such as refugee status, exile, migration, immigration, trans-nationalism, and expatriation;
  • Critical knowledge of the scholarship in at least one aspect of African Diaspora Studies.


The Certificate welcomes applications from persons who meet the following criteria:

Have earned a bachelor’s or graduate degree from an accredited university and have made application for and gained admission to UMass as a non-degree student through the Graduate Admissions Office.

To Apply:  Send an email Tricia Loveland tlovelan@afroam.umass.edu to set up an appointment with one of the co-directors. Visit the website for details and forms: https://www.umass.edu/afroam/graduate-certificate-african-diaspora-studies

Requirements: Five graduate courses distributed as follows:

  • AfroAm 692Q: African Diaspora Studies: Introduction to Concepts and Historiography
  • Four electives selected among the current offerings by the UMass Amherst and Five Colleges African Diaspora Faculty or alternate courses with the approval of one of the certificate co-directors.

Co-directors: John H. Bracey, Agustin Lao-Montes