Afro-Diasporic and Racial Studies Track

The Afro-Diasporic and Racial Studies Track invites students to engage with topics related to the multidimensional reality, histories, productions, and representations of the African Diaspora and its Afro-descendants in the archipelago of Puerto Rico, and beyond our borders, from antiracist, critical, intersectional, decolonial, and social justice perspectives. Students will have the opportunity to learn about the philosophies, triumphs, contributions, struggles, and oppressions sustained by Black, racialized, and Afro-Puerto Rican people and communities, and to recognize the importance of thinking identities and the resistance to hegemonic racist world-systems and forms of domination, via dynamic, action-oriented, intersectional, and solidarity models, both within and outside the academia.

Students not interested in enrolling in a track may opt to participate in our standard, direct-enrollment program.

University Courses

Students will have the opportunity to take three or four courses alongside Puerto Rican students at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, or three courses and an internship. Courses from a variety of disciplines, schools, and academic departments may be taken, including the School of General Studies’ Social Sciences Department, the multidisciplinary Academic Diversification Project in Afro-Diasporic and Racial Studies (PRAFRO), the Spanish Department, the Women and Gender Studies Program, among many others. Course offered may include:

• Afro-diasporic Epistemologies
• The Social Construction of Afro Subjectivities
• Research Project in Afrodescendencia
• Racial Imaginaries, National Identities, Cultural production and Gender
• Intersections between Race, Gender and Law
• History, Thought and Afro-Activism in Puerto Rico
• Origin and Development of Bomba Music
• The Black Woman in Puerto Rican Literature
• Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary Afro-Caribbean
• Racism and Mental Health
• The Census, the State and Racialization in Afro-Latin America
• Afro-Latin American Literature

Please note: courses offered vary each semester, and all courses taken by Middlebury School in Puerto Rico students must be fully in-person.

Students will also take the Middlebury course, SPAN2401P Writing for Linguistic and Cultural Competence (0.5 credits) for a total of 4.5 Middlebury units.

Internships and volunteer opportunities

Students in the Afro-Diasporic and Racial Studies Track may be able to volunteer or do internships related to UPRRP’s Congreso de Afrodescendencia y Racialidad (CONAFRO), the Proyecto de Afrodescendencia y Racialización (PRAFRO), its Cumbre Internacional AFRO (CUMBRE AFRO), and the collaborative curatorial art project PUERTO RICO AFRO: Tiznando el país-Visualidades y Representaciones, led by the Instituto Interdisciplinario y Multicultural (INIM-UPRRP), in collaboration with Alianza de Museos de Puerto Rico.

Eligible Students may also be able to volunteer or do internships in institutions such as  Proyecto Enlace del Caño Martín Peña (http://martinpena.org/#entidades) and Taller Comunidad La Goyco (https://www.lagoyco.org/), among other participating organizations.  

Students interested in interning must verify that their home institutions will accept academic credit for the specific experience. General internship application procedures and deadlines will apply.