The Minor in American Studies covers the history, politics, and culture of the United States. Our interdisciplinary perspective draws on a range of methods, including media studies, international relations, literary criticism, political science, gender and sexuality studies. U.S. influence spans the globe, whether enthusiastically adopted or vehemently opposed. An education in American Studies offers students a historical foundation and equips them with the tools of critical understanding.
We welcome students from many disciplines: media studies, English, art history, and literary & cultural analysis, to name a few, as well as students from the social sciences and “hard” sciences—economics, political science, law, and physics. The Minor thus serves as a robust introduction to the humanities on a college level. American Studies can complement these other curricula, providing students with a confident command over interdisciplinary scholarship and a broad array of primary sources.
We draw from political history as well as from the realms of literature, photography, film, music, and art. And we dive into the deep end of good, advanced scholarship from different fields. There is no single way of doing American Studies; students learn to think, to research, and to write in an Americanist mode, but also to make that mode their own.
To enroll, follow the instructions available at the UvA studiegids
Program structure
“American History, Beginning to End” surveys the histories and mythologies of the United States; “The Craft of American Studies” hones the skills of research, writing, and argument. “Usable Pasts” takes a topic of contemporary concern and excavates its familiar and its hidden histories. “Metropolitan America” centers on a particular city from its founding to the present (including a trip to that city).
Courses
American History, Beginning to End (lecture + seminars, blocks 1-2, 12EC)
This course is an introduction to American history from the colonial period to the present day. Broad topics include European and American Indian colonial encounters; the rise and fall of slavery; immigration and ethnicity; the development of political institutions; American cultural and religious history; and the place of the United States in the world. The title (“beginning to end”) suggests a straight chronology, but this course is not a simple march from the past to the present. We will start with the modern age, and then return to origins and work our way forward through social, political and cultural transformations.
Along the way we will encounter motifs and mythologies about “America” that still inform our expectations of the United States today: city upon a hill, new order for the ages (novus order seclorum), promised land, melting pot, land of the future. And we will measure these mythologies against the reality of the United States—the American Dream alongside what has sometimes been the American nightmare. Our goal is to comprehend broad narratives but also to make use of specific sources and powerful details. Students will thus encounter many different kinds of sources, from political and diplomatic history and from the realm of culture: memoirs, sermons, satires, short fiction, photographs, experimental journalism, and song.
The Craft of American Studies (seminar, block 3, 6EC)
This course is about the craft of scholarship in American Studies. It hones the skills of research, writing, and argument in an interdisciplinary Americanist tradition. We will cover the technical basics, including library resources and rules of citation, as well as profounder questions of structure, argument, and narrative: how to read, and how to write. Good research and good academic writing take practice, after all. Students will become better readers of advanced scholarship, and they will learn to engage in a real scholarly dialogue. Drawing on some of the materials of “American History, Beginning to End,” students will further their own discoveries and interpretations, and build them into an original piece of writing on a subject of their own choosing.
Usable Pasts (seminar, block 5, 6EC )
The present always informs our view of the past: it shapes the kinds of questions we ask, the kinds of interpretations we find important and meaningful. This course begins from the present and works backwards. The title comes from the American critic Van Wyck Brooks, who in 1918 called for the excavation of a “usable past” to ignite the creative possibilities of American culture. In this course, the past will be usable in a different way. We will take an American topic of current concern and challenge students to develop a historical perspective on it. This is more than mere “background”: we will be just as interested in the hidden background, the surprising precedent, the unlikely continuity, the unintended consequence, the path not taken. Students will develop research projects that illuminate that past and speak to the present.
The United States looms peculiarly large in contemporary life and modern media. For that reason, a deeper historical awareness of the United States is an important asset in today’s world. This course encourages students to think critically about journalistic accounts and about public history, and to think comparatively about the United States. It also develops an understanding of the politics of history: what is left out of contemporary debate? Who, in other words, is using the past, and why?
Metropolitan America (lecture + seminars, block 5, 6 EC)
This wide-ranging course in American political, social, and cultural history centers on American cities from their founding to the present. Alongside the discussion of general trends in American urban life, “Metropolitan America” highlights one particular city in depth. The course culminates in a week-long study trip to the city in question.
“Metropolitan America” complements “American History, Beginning to End,” by cultivating diachronic and synchronic approaches to history. Students learn to understand a broad theme across time, and to interpret the rich primary source in its own specific moment. Students will be introduced to topics such as the growth and development of American cities, the impact of the second industrial revolution on the urban landscape, the experiences of migration and immigration. We will also explore major issues in urban politics, suburbanization and gentrification. A focus on one metropolitan area allows us to explore certain themes in greater depth: social issues specific to that city, literary and artistic representations, religious history and secularization, architecture, urban planning, and the lives of particular figures.