African Studies is an interdisciplinary field focused on African peoples and their histories, cultures, and languages. The undergraduate curriculum supports students’ interests, which may range from an individual course to the completion the African Studies minor. Research and travel funding is available in several departments in the Schools of Humanities and School of Social Sciences. Rice’s Department of Anthropology offers an archaeological field school every other summer. For help with applications for internal funding and information about sources of external funding, please contact faculty advisor Jeffrey Fleisher or director Kerry R. Ward.

Rice offers opportunities to learn about and travel to Africa via the Office of Study Abroad, Rice 360, Beyond Traditional Borders. The Africanist faculty at Rice strongly urge that students contemplating travel to Africa through these programs take at least one course from the African Studies curriculum.