There should not be an African-American Studies Department

The re-acquisition of Cornel West to Princeton University places the final jewel in the crown of the ambitious Program in African-American Studies, which has made it known that it wouldn't mind being a full-fledged department. It has been oft noted that Princeton is the only Ivy League that does not have a Department of African American Studies. I would hope that it remains that way.

Not that I have anything against African- American studies. On the contrary, I support the idea of a multi-disciplinary study of a topic that is of significant interest. I think it's wonderful that scholars of History, Religion, Sociology, Art, etc get together to collaborate on the African- American Experience, mediated by the Program in African-American studies. Likewise, I think its swell that scholars pow-wow to study the American Experience through the Program in American Studies. And the Program in Women's Studies, and so on.

But that does not mean that there should be a Department of African-American Studies, or a Department of American Studies or a Department of Women's Studies, etc. The reason is that a department should encompass a discipline, not a mere field of interest. History is a discipline, it requires its students to learn about histiography and develop a historical imagination. Sociology is also a discipline, again because students learn sociological methods and the tools of social analysis. Religion is a discipline as it requires an understanding of the theory behind human spirituality.

African-American Studies is not, however, a discipline. Tiger Magazine wryly joked that Cornel West was an "expert on being a black man." The humor article was actually rather unfair to West, who has done significant work on religion and American pragmatism, and is indeed to be appointed to the Department of Religion. But there is some truth in the sense that a graduate from a Department of African American studies would be limited to being an expert on the African American experience, utterly lacking the tools with which to dissect that experience, having received no formal training in history, sociology, religion, etc. Much preferable is the student who, working through one of the Departments and gaining an expertise in an actual discipline, gets a certificate from the Program of African-American studies, bringing their expertise to what is and should remain a multi-disciplinary program.