Africana Theory is an experience in critical thought, which makes legible - through lexicon and perspective - the unique subjectivities and experiences of the African diaspora. This course is both an invitation to and an endeavoring within a “new” set of criticisms collectivized at the point where racial discourse meets or engenders blackness and/or African diasporic identities. It will introduce particular ways of reading and specific ways of theorizing the blackness of texts, bodies, culture, and experience. Grounded within literary, critical, and cultural theory, and considering questions from the epistemological to the existential, it will equip the serious student with the lenses, language(s), and vocabularies necessary to responsibly and accurately read the varied textualities signified by the idea/concept of Africana.