August 1, 2002

Sanu da zuwa! Maharba!

Greetings, friends! And welcome to the History Department's African Diaspora Certificate program! This site will give you basic information about the program, the required courses and the History Department Faculty members who teach them. You will also find active links to websites that we think will help you to explore Africa and the African Diaspora.

What is the African Diaspora Certificate Program?
The African Diaspora Certificate program was put into place in 1996. The field has grown dramatically since 1996 as scholars have uncovered and studied vital, new sources of evidence and pioneered new methodologies and theoretical perspectives in their work. The public response has been equally dramatic and the history of the African Diaspora, especially to the Americas, has added important insights into the ways we think about gender, race, history and memory here in the United States.

What are Our Goals?
Our goal is to provide students with opportunities to study the history of Africa and African's in the Atlantic world, focusing especially on this theme in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. In our teaching and scholarship we expand the global history of the African experience, which for so long has been confined to brief glimpses of the Atlantic slave trade.

Who Are We?
As a Department of History, we are fortunate to have a collective of scholars whose work fully represents the vitality and originality of the distinct fields of historical scholarship and teaching that support our African Diaspora Certificate Program.

I would like to invite you to look over the brief faculty statements each of us have posted on the History Department's website and the sample of syllabi, describing courses in our African Diaspora Certificate Program.

Our faculty include:

• Mary Bivins Ph.D (Michigan State University), Assistant Professor of African History, West Africa, Woman, Islam Culture & Ethnicity.
• Gregory Conerly Ph.D (University of Iowa), Assistant Professor, post-Civil War U.S., Race, Gender and Sexuality.
• Dillard Poole Ph.D (Indiana University) Adjunct, Slavery, 19th century Brazil.
• Donald Ramos Ph.D (University of Florida), Professor of History, Slavery and Race in 18th & 19th century Brazil.
• Dorothy Salem Ph.D (Kent State University) African American History, Women's History, Immigration History, Urban History.
• Jose Sola Ph.D Candidate (University of Connecticut) Puerto Rico, Spanish Caribbean, Modern Latin America, Colonialism and Imperialism, Popular culture.
• Robert Shelton Ph.D (Rice University), Assistant Professor, 19th century US History.
• Karen Sotiropoulos Ph.D (City University of New York), Assistant Professor, African-American History.
• Mark Tebeau Ph.D (Carnegie Mellon University) US Urban, Social, and Industrial History; Public History; Social Studies
• Robert Wheeler Ph.D (Brown University) American Colonial and Family History and the Western Reserve
• Regennia Williams Ph.D (Case Western Reserve University), Assistant Professor, African-American History

For further information contact:
Cleveland State University
The Department of History
2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115
216-687-3920 Fax: 216-687-5592