Book Proposal

Title

Africana Studies in the 21st Century: An African-Centered Approach

August 22, 2022

Submitted by

Michael Tillotson PhD

State University of New York at Cortland

Department of Africana Studies

22 Graham Avenue

Cortland, NY 13045

Office Phone: (607) 753-2276

E-mail: michael.tillotson@cortland.edu

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 Proposal Overview

I. The Content

A. Premise
B. Unique Selling Proposition
C. Table of Contents & Chapter Overview
D. Manuscript
1. Manuscript Details
2. Special Features
3. Anticipated Manuscript Length

II. The Market

A. Psychographic Description
B. Affinity Group
C. Competition

III. The Author

A. Background
B. Previous Writing
C. Personal Marketing

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 Proposal Overview

Africana Studies in the 21st Century: An African-Centered Approach

Michael Tillotson PhD

I. THE CONTENT

A. Premise/Abstract

Africana Studies, as an academic discipline, remains a mystery to many in the

American academy. Antiquated ideas still abound in terms of thinking the
field is primarily located in three areas: History, Literature and Culture. While
those areas remain an important part of the discipline’s focus, there are other
areas that have developed and taken center stage in Africana Studies. Areas
such as Applied Africana Studies, Afrocentricity, African Centered
Psychology, Critical Africana Theory and Literary Pan-Africanism, as well as
the role of the Africana Studies Practitioner anchor the discipline in the 21st
century. Consequently, as the second decade of the millennium moves
forward, a new work that explains the corpus of scholarly ideas in authentic
Africana Studies must emerge. This book represents the first book written by a
terminal degree holder in African American Studies that will explain and
highlight the uniqueness of the epistemological identity of the discipline, as
well as act a professional guide and scholarly compass that gives the reader a
complete understanding of the African-Centered locus of the field in the 21st
century. This book will look at the major schools of thought in (Black)
Africana Studies and illuminate which framework (school) has the greatest
potential for producing intellectual agency for the discipline. This work will
address the question: In the 21st century does Africana Studies function better
solely as an academic idea or should it still be concerned with social
responsibility (a part of its original mantra in 1968)? This book reflects
consensus on a new critical community of ideational frameworks that make
clear the epistemological fluency necessary to navigate the circumference of
Africana Studies located in the 21st century. The chapters in this volume
reflect the criticality of African-centered thought in the discipline and
demonstrate the expanded scope of competencies made possible by possession
of the terminal degree in African American Studies.

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 B. Unique Selling Proposition

If readers in the target market purchase and read:

Africana Studies in the 21st Century: An African-Centered Approach

They Will:

1. Have epistemological fluency of the ideational frameworks in 21st

century Africana Studies being advanced by authentic agency
driven African-centered thought, which is crucial to the world of
scholarship in terms of understanding the discipline in its current
configuration. I.E. (This is NOT your grandfathers Africana
Studies.)

2. Be better able to critically interpret the intellectual nature of the

authentic Africana Studies African-Centered platform and its
concerns such as: ontology, axiology, hermeneutics and
phenomenology through the lens of African-centered thought and
praxis.

3. Understand the wide girth of disciplinary competencies accrued

through the attainment of the PhD in African American Studies
and have a greater understanding of the epistemological identity of
the discipline in its authentic African-Centered formations.

4. Be abreast of the professional responsibilities of the Applied

Africana Studies practitioner, have awareness of the distinctives of
authentic Africana scholarship, the unique theories, paradigms,
conceptual frameworks and intellectual models of the discipline in
addition to having a grounded knowledge in order to understand
the difference between the “Study of Black people and Black
Studies.”

Because the book will:

A. Provide the reader with knowledge that informs them of the

multifaceted and unique research approaches now being actualized
through critical Africana thought.

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 B. Give new insights and critiques on the Africana Studies thematic
universe in the scholarly world which often go unexamined.

C. Examine how African-centered Africana Studies in the 21st century

uniquely interprets and understands the universe of Africana thought
and its disciplinary realities.

C. Table of Contents & Chapter Synopsis

The manuscript is divided into ten distinct sections not including the
preface, and introduction.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Teaching Introduction to Africana Studies: Sustaining a Disciplinary Focus

Chapter 2 Applied Africana Studies

Chapter 3 The Philosophical Basis for the African Worldview in Africana Studies

Chapter 4 Critical Africana Thought

Chapter 5 Theories and Paradigms in Africana Studies

Chapter 6 Departmental Responsibilities

Chapter 7 African-Centered Africana Studies

Chapter 8 Organic Thinking as the Afrocentric Idea

Chapter 9 The Role of the Africana Practitioner in the 21st Century

Chapter 10 The Way Forward-The F.O.R.T Paradigm

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 Chapter Synopsis

Chapter one: In the American academy, there is quite possibly no other discipline with
the history of (Black) Africana Studies. Founded on the idea of struggle and resistance
and eventually becoming the intellectual arm of the Black Power movement, the field has
for decades institutionalized and established itself as a cogent and coherent academic
discipline. The flagship course for the discipline has always been the introductory course
from the field’s inception. One of the central questions that loom in many Africana
circles concerns building egalitarian consensus on the teaching of the introductory course.
This chapter seeks to address that issue by offering plausible guidelines for instructors
and practitioners to follow.

Chapter two: The current intellectual and political climate dictates a need for an
empirically driven trajectory for the discipline of African American studies. An African-
centered worldview in concert with a theoretical research framework to guide Africana
studies scholars’ use of social science research methods is what is presented in this
chapter. This chapter will argue that in the 21st century, the unique interests of African-
descended people are best served by the empirical approach, specifically when legislative
bodies and social service providers require data-based solutions to social problems. This
chapter maintains that Applied Africana Studies is a theoretical framework that guides
the production of scholarship that is both centered and relevant to the needs and interests
of people of African descent. In some quarters, the empirical method is dismissed
because of its disproportionate use by non-African centered researchers and their
politically driven agendas against the interests of African people. To address this, this
chapter maintains that the training of African-centered empirical practitioners who hold
the terminal degree in African American studies is an absolute imperative to advance
African development on African terms in the 21st century.

Chapter three: It is known that most human ideas comes from a philosophical location
of some kind, whether that is admitted to by scholars is a source of much debate.
Authentic African centered Africana Studies is a scholarly response to intellectual
hegemony and exclusion because it locates its operating principles on the African
Worldview. This is because Africana Studies philosophical elements are egalitarian in
how its sees itself in terms of intellectual agency and knowledge production. This chapter
will illuminate this reality and make clear to the reader the ways in which a philosophical
worldview is critically important to Africana Studies as an emancipatory project.

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Chapter four: In most intellectual discourse (globally) when one thinks about thinking it
is usually western colonial discourse or the heirs to that canon that come to mind.
Thinkers such as Socrates, his student Plato and later his student Aristotle become the
barometer for the understanding of humanity. This chapter will discuss the criticality of
African-centered ways of viewing the human experience that locate the European idea as
just one way of looking at humanity versus it being positioned as the only way to
understand and describe the human experience.

Chapter five: One of the long standing myths concerning Africana Studies is the
uninformed notion that it is devoid of unique theories and methodological grounding that
are central to its purpose. This chapter will explore and explain the large corpus of
ideational frameworks that have developed in Africana Studies intellectual discourse that
form and shape its methodological, theoretical and paradigmatic categories, which are
now being used by authentic Africana Studies practitioners in the discipline.

Chapter six: In Africana Studies there are still unresolved questions concerning the role,
mission, purpose and function of the discipline at the departmental level in terms of its
living up to the mantra, “Academic Excellence and Social Responsibility.” This chapter
will outline the importance of the community service model for departments and
articulate the importance of the town/gown community congruency that is necessary for
21st century departments of Africana Studies. This chapter will also highlight the
importance of the development of African-Centered institutes and their importance to
Africana Studies programs and departments.

Chapter seven: This chapter will outline what are the best practices and make clear the
need for a forward thinking agenda for progressive (not in a political sense) but in
academic terms such items as: hiring practices, course offerings, following National
Council of Black Studies guidelines, mandates, core curriculum and general practices.
This chapter will examine ideas surrounding how to move towards disciplinary
standardization with allowances for variation concerning regional peculiarities that may
complicate the question.

Chapter eight: Looking at W.E.B DuBois and Carter G. Woodson as disciplinary models this chapter
will re-visit the idea of the organic thinker and its importance for Africana Studies. Using organic
thinking as a viaduct to agency driven scholarship and relying upon the ancient Kemetic notion of
scholarship i.e. (knowledge for human sake not just knowledge for knowledge sake) this chapter will
illuminate the importance of agency driven intellectual production as the marker for authentic
Africana Studies work. This chapter will advance the idea that scholarship that lives only in the

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abstract is not in line with the original founding principles of African thought and Africana Studies in
1968. The role of the SESH in Africana thought will be explored.

Chapter nine: In Africana Studies like all of the Applied Social Sciences there are central
epistemological and philosophical guidelines that should be practiced and followed. This chapter will
delineate and describe the research protocols which Africana Studies Practitioners should employ to
go about their work while adhering to the principles of sound, rigorous social science.

Chapter ten: This chapter will introduce the F.O.R.T paradigm (operationalized) as the
way forward. Looking at the discipline from a 21 st Century prism this chapter will bring
forth the ideational frameworks, intellectual formations, theoretical constructions and
methodologies that authentically serve the founding ideas of the discipline. With
consideration for the current resistance towards race specific intellectual production this
chapter insists that scholarship can be specific without being essentialist and this is a
foundational enterprise for Africana Studies going forward.

D. Manuscript

Manuscript Details:

1. Special Features: The manuscript does not include any tables or charts.

2. Anticipated Manuscript Length: Possible--- Words 75-85,000---180 pp.

(Including, preface and introduction.)

II. The Market

A. Audience
The audience for this book will be professional academics, lay people and
individuals interested in contemporary ideas emerging in critical
Africana thought. The book will also appeal to all persons invested
in and committed to projects concerning intellectual agency. This
book speaks to an audience of readers seeking knowledge of the current
ideas and conceptual frameworks that are
illuminating the realities of people of Africana Studies. This book also
provides insights into the academic world, and the challenges of
Africana Studies scholars.

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B. Affinity Groups

Africana Studies Professors Departments and Programs

Ethnic Studies Professors Departments and Programs

Humanities Professors Departments and Programs

Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Social Science Professors Departments and Programs

Members of the National Council of Black Studies

Subscribers to the Journal of Black Studies

Subscribers to the Journal of African American Studies

Subscribers to the Western Journal of Black Studies

Subscribers to the Journal of African American Studies

University and College African American Library Subject Specialists

Members of the NAACP

Members of the Urban League

African American Fraternal and Sorority Organizations

C. Competition

This is the first comprehensive text, written by a terminal degree holder

with the PhD in African American Studies that centers on the academic,
professional, departmental, programmatic, conceptual, ideational,
philosophical, cultural, research and epistemological issues connected to
African-Centered Africana Studies intellectual reality in the 21st century.

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III. The Author

Background:

A. The author holds the Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple

University (2008.)

The author also holds the M.A. in Africana Studies from the State

University of New York at Albany. (2004)

Previous writing:

B. The author has published two books, 11 articles and six book reviews

in the leading journals in the field of African American Studies.

IV. Personal Marketing

C. As a professional academic in the field of Africana Studies, the author

has wide access to networking opportunities which include but are not
limited to: The National council of Black Studies annual conference
and its worldwide networks. University and community invited
lectures, sponsored speaking engagements, scholarly conferences as
well as symposiums and colloquiums which offer numerous
opportunities to engage, inform, discuss and promote the book.

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