About Us
Martine Granby, an assistant professor of journalism and women's, gender, and sexuality studies and an affiliate of the Africana Studies Institute, teaches a section of AFRA 3575: Black Documentary Film Archival Practices in Wood Hall.
Africana Studies at UConn
Africana Studies exists as an academic unit within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UConn. Established in 1989, the primary mission of the Africana Studies Institute (formerly the Institute for African American Studies) is to enlighten and inform the University of Connecticut community and the people of the State of Connecticut, the nation, and the world about the history, culture, contributions and experiences of people of African descent in the United States and abroad. To achieve this goal, the ASI promotes high-quality research, scholarship, and teaching of the African American experience and sponsors a wide variety of programs on topics and issues that are critical to Black America and pertinent to a better understanding of the Black world.
The ASI functions with a Director, an Associate Director, program coordinator, core and affiliate faculty, visiting faculty and faculty-in-residence, as well as graduate and undergraduate assistants. Our core faculty are mostly tenured or tenure track faculty in various departments—Art and Art History, English, History, Human Development and Family Studies, Political Science, Sociology, and Psychology. They are nationally and internationally known scholars and practitioners whose specializations include anti-Black racism, Afro-Caribbean history and culture, African American politics, African history, digital humanities, Black feminist theory, Black women’s history, Black psychology, African American literature, identity development, Black girlhood, etc.