Characterized by an openness to diverse themes, media and methodological approaches, the study of the arts and architecture of Africa and its diasporas in the UCLA Department of Art History, under the tutelage of Professor Steven Nelson, is aimed at students interested in building careers in the academy, the museum world, and beyond. The program encompasses both the historical and the contemporary, both the rural and the urban. It also emphasizes the importance of relations between Africa and the wider world.

The graduate curriculum stresses methodological issues, the development of close reading skills, and the problems of developing sensitivity to objects in a cross-cultural environment. It also encourages reflection on "Africas of the mind." Current and future courses include: "Modernism(s) in Africa"; "Envisioning the African Metropolis"; "Topics in Theory and Criticism: African Aesthetics"; "The Culture of Mami Wata;" "'Africas' in the Diaspora"; "Fieldwork in the Contemporary"; "African Arts, Tourism and Colonialism"; and "Africa on TV." Professor Nelson also regularly offers courses in African American art.

The resources at UCLA for the study of African art history are impressive. The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History maintains the largest collection of African art in the United States (over 26,000 works from across the continent) and has particularly extensive holdings from Ghana, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UCLA has hosted over twenty-five exhibitions relating to African topics, including the path-breaking African Art in Motion (1974), Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos (1984), and Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou (1995). The appointment of distinguished Africanists Marla C. Berns as Director and Mary Nooter Roberts as Deputy Director and Senior Curator demonstrates the Fowler's continuing commitment to producing exhibitions notable for intellectual rigor and for stimulating debate.

Professor Nelson is a member of a remarkable community of scholars dedicated to the study of the humanities in Africa and its diasporas. Related faculty include Allen F. Roberts, Donald Cosentino, and Christopher Waterman in the Department of World Arts and Cultures, who specifically focus on the visual culture or performing arts of Africa and the Americas. However, the James S. Coleman African Studies Center, one of the most prominent in the United States, is composed from an unusually broad range of disciplines. It is particularly noteworthy that UCLA has five historians and four linguists who specialize in African subjects. The Center also publishes African Arts, a leading journal in the field.

The combination of UCLA's distinguished faculty and outstanding resources provides an engaged environment in which graduate students can easily craft a personalized program for study in the art history of Africa and its diasporas that is marked by both its richness and its breadth.