Black Studies and the Case of/for the Howard Journal of Communications

Abstract

The Howard Journal of Communications has long been viewed as a space within communication studies to publish scholarship pertaining to race, intercultural communication, class, gender, sexuality, and colonialism. As such, it can be, and should be, celebrated as one of the journals that laid the foundation for the contemporary proliferation of communication studies work that critically examines topics that disproportionately effect marginalized people. Still, what I argue is this journal is something more: in terms of journals with an explicit communication studies focus, this journal remains the main journal of Black studies for communication scholars, which is to say it is a material break from the dominant, White communication studies discipline completely. In many ways, then, the journal is not necessarily a communication studies journal, despite its name, but a Black studies journal for us scholars trained in communication studies.