American Studies Program Overview

The American Studies Program offers a way to better understand human beings, to see how they were and how they are in order to improve the ways they will be. It studies Americans because their words, their deeds and thoughts, their civilization and culture, both past and present, are comparatively easy to search out, to analyze and to understand.

American studies is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American culture. Students take courses from a variety of disciplines, integrate them in two American studies core courses, and cap off their undergraduate degree with an independent research project in which they ask, research and answer their own most pressing questions about some aspect of American culture. Students whose interests range widely and who want to know more about their world from as many points of view as possible are usually very successful as American studies majors.