Concentrations

The heart of each major's program consists of a cluster of four upper-level electives that form an area of concentration. A concentration within American Studies is an intellectually coherent plan of study, developed in consultation with your advisor, that explores in detail a specific aspect of the culture(s) and society of the United States. It may be built around a discipline (like history, literary criticism, government, sociology), a field (such as cultural studies, ethnic studies, women's studies), or a "problematic" (such as ecology and culture, politics and culture). Frequently chosen areas of concentration include mass culture, film studies, popular culture, ethnic studies, urban studies, African American studies, queer studies, and cultural studies.

Ethnic studies

The concentration in Ethnic Studies emphasizes the comparative study of American Indians, African Americans, Pacific Islanders, Chicanos and Latinos, and Asian Americans. Turning to the entangled histories of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, racism, disenfranchisement, and labor, ethnic studies scholars examine how different peoples become "American." Central to Ethnic Studies courses is a focus on comparative racialization and the contested, and often contradictory, notions of identity and citizenship across multiple categories of difference including gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. Ethnic Studies courses survey selected historical moments, geographical and institutional sites, cases and periods in order to explore complexities of life in the United States. As each course utilizes a wide-variety of approaches to Ethnic Studies, students also examine methodologies within this field (including historical, literary, sociological, anthropological works and interdisciplinary scholarship that includes postcolonial and cultural studies) by attending to a selection of recuperated histories within a range of different geographical sites and regions, communities, and political terrains and turning to particular studies of sovereign rights, citizenship, immigration, political activism and resistance, enfranchisement and civil rights,