Encyclopedia of Black Studies

Editor/Author: Asante, Molefi Kete and Mazama, Ama
Publication Year: 2004
Publisher: Sage Publications

ISBN: 978-0-7619-2762-4
Category: business
Image Count: 19
Book Status: Available

The Encyclopedia of Black Studies is the leading reference source for dynamic and innovative research on the Black experience. The concept for the encyclopedia was developed from the successful Journal of Black Studies (SAGE) and contains a full analysis of the economic, political, sociological, historical, literary, and philosophical issues related to Americans of African descent. This is the vanguard of the recent explosive growth in quality scholarship in the field.

This book is found in the following Credo Collections:

• SAGE Sociology Collection
• SAGE Reference Collection

See what others are saying:

• Black studies has long needed this work to deflect and answer questions from critics and supporters. The editors set out to establish a baseline for understanding the field, to try in a work admittedly in progress to define the most commonly used ideas and concepts. For example, how do practitioners currently use the term "Afrocentricity"? This work can be particularly helpful to scholars in tangentially related fields, helping them to know how black studies specialists define certain terms and concepts. In such a relatively new field of study there are potential conflicts of interest; e.g., the entry for Kwanzaa is written by Maulana Karenga, who claims responsibility for its emergence. Interesting entries include that for the history of Journal of Negro History and its role in black studies. For most academic libraries this work provides a starting point for research on topics that could at first baffle undergraduates (e.g., defining "Melanin Theory"). Black studies' inclusion of so many adjoining disciplines requires that this work continue to evolve. The brief bibliographies with each entry lead to further research and help explain each contributor's focus.

  C. Williams
  CUNY Hunter College

• "Black Studies" is accepted by most academicians as a legitimate discipline within itself, although the field is dominated by two camps, one with a more traditional "European" standpoint and the other with an Afrocentric worldview. This latter group, originally centered at Temple University (the Temple Circle), comprise the nucleus of the 122 U.S. scholarly contributors to this volume. Curiously, although the editors stress the internationalism of their work, only seven cite non-U.S. academic affiliations. Many of the 253 alphabetically arranged, signed articles throughout show the influence of editors Asante and Mazama, two leading U.S. Afrocentric scholars, which leads to the unevenness of the writing. Whereas most of the entries, derived from Sage's Journal of Black Studies, are evenhanded, some (e.g., "African American Studies, Temple University) cry out for the other side of the story. Many of these topics would be found in any standard Black Studies reference work, such as the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (see ARBA 97, entry 331) and the Africana Encyclopedia (Running Press, 2003), but the editors also include entries on such Afrocentric Black Studies topics as Kawaida and Afrocentric social work. Also, no biographical entries are included. However, each article features three or four annotated bibliographic citations (many citing Asante), and the "Suggested Resources" appendix and index are helpful. Users will want to examine other non-Afrocentric resources to get the full picture of some of these topics. This work is recommended when balanced out with Bobo, Hudley, and Michel's The Black Studies Reader (Routledge, 2003) and the above-named resources.

  Anthony J. Adam
  Director, Institutional Assessment, Blinn College, Brenham, Tex.