American Studies Program — The Program

The American Studies Program offers students the opportunity to explore the rich diversity of the United States—its peoples and their cultures. Students develop the kinds of broad historic and intercultural perspectives from which they can understand their own experiences—as well as those of other Americans—by studying literature and history; music, TV and film; institutions such as religion, family, politics and government; and social and scientific thought and belief-systems. The program gives special attention to racial, ethnic, gender, class and regional dynamics in the nation’s past and present, and to the various forms of media and popular culture that shape and reflect them.