American Studies Curriculum

In American Studies we examine American cultural life in the past and present with the aim of helping our students and our communities better understand their experiences and societies. Our diverse and interdisciplinary curriculum explores how Americans have thought about and experienced such matters as gender, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, and regional identities; how they have used humor, movies, music, games, and social media to understand themselves and their relationships to others; and how they have dealt with issues of crime and violence, work and consumerism, nature and the built environment, politics and policy, science and technology; colonialism and empire, and numerous others. In an American Studies class we will encounter a wide range of cultural sources for study. We may read one or more novels or autobiographies, examine movies, television, and games as cultural documents, consider the visual arts, built environment, and music, and conduct ethnographic oberservations and interviews.  Across all, we will use tools and methods from across the humanities, social sciences, and arts to explore two of the most central and contested questions of our society: what is "America" and who are "Americans"?

Critical thinking and comunication skills are the core of all our courses. All exams in American Studies are essay exams. All classes emphasize discussion and classroom dialogue rather than pure lecture. Students regularly write response papers in which they critically evaluate and synthesize what they have read and discussed. Students regularly conduct archival and ethnographic research and write up the results of that research in ways which integrate their own findings with ideas and evidence presented in the classroom.

For information about all of our courses, please see our Courses page.