In the History Department’s American Studies track, we explore the history, politics, and culture of United States, from within and without.
Broad knowledge, focused inquiry. Our BA courses balance the broad and the specific. To think historically is to view the world through lenses large and small. We grapple with the broad process—the migration of millions across an ocean, the sweep of Atlantic slavery, wars and revolutions, political polarization—and with powerful primary sources: a slave narrative, a short story about sleeping through the American Revolution, a biting satire about Coca-Cola and the Cold War, a photograph of ruins. Looking abroad, we integrate traditional diplomatic and military history with an attention to the role of culture in international relations.
American Studies is interdisciplinary and research-intensive. Students are encouraged to design their own research inquiries, and hone their own adventurous interpretations. From the introductory course to the advanced seminar, we emphasize the crafts of writing, argument, and presentation.
Information & Registration
History students can enroll the American Studies Track via Studielink. When you re-enroll in History for another year, choose the track Amerikanistiek rather than Geschiedenis (algemeen programma).
Studielink
Courses – Year 2
American History, Beginning to End (lecture + seminar, 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.
Metropolitan America (lecture + seminar, blocks 5-6, 12EC)
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.
Courses – Year 3
The American Century (seminar, blocks 1-2, 12EC)
In 1941, Henry Luce, the publisher of Life magazine, announced that the 20th century would be the “American Century.” In this course we will study how the United States became a superpower since World War I. This involves an inquiry into power and into culture. We will analyze how Americans envisioned their political and military role in the world, but we will also consider the cultural implications of American ascendance. The United States assumed a global cultural presence, notably in art, music, and movies, but also in ideas about management. “Americanization” might be a stage of what we now call globalization, but the relationship between these processes is unpredictable. The “Americanness” of American culture is surprisingly slippery in Americanized world. Additionally, the idea of an American Century has generated protests and rival visions of the United States’ role in the world. Inevitably, we will grapple with what it means to live after the American Century.
Electives
From Family of Nations to America First: The American Debate about National Security since World War II (lecture, blocks 1-2, 12EC)
During the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to create an international system that would prevent the emergence of the next global conflict. Roosevelt’s approach contained idealistic elements about international cooperation, yet was also grounded in realistic concepts of power politics. It was not long before American politicians thought in terms of a Manichean superpower conflict with the Soviet Union, phrased in terms of national security and the threat of a nuclear attack. Since the 1940s, Americans have tried to deal with issues about the role of the United States in the world, protecting American society and citizens from foreign attacks, while trying to convince other nations that it was in their own interest to join the American cause—peacefully or not. These international tensions reshaped American government, and had profound consequences for American society and citizens.
In this course we will analyze the debate about national security in the United States since the 1940s, and how it has shaped the American government, the consequences for American society, and the role of the United States in the world. The debate about national security and nuclear weapons shaped not only American foreign policy, but also domestic governance. It had a deep impact on American life and culture. We will analyze various wars the United States has fought since 1945, and covert operations executed in enemy, neutral, and allied nations. We will also study the consequences of this debate for American society, and the suspicion of possible communist influences in government (McCarthyism) and in protest movements in the 1960s (COINTELPRO). The course concludes with the national security debate in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.
In addition to a handbook, we will use primary sources such as government documents, novels, and movies to study the many myths and realities of “national security.”
Democracy in America (seminar, block 4, 6ECTS)
This seminar familiarizes students with American political thought by focusing on a few of its major representatives. We take students, in a few giant steps, from the founding of the American nation to the end of the twentieth century by discussing American political theorists ranging from James Madison to Hannah Arendt. More specifically we explore what these political thinkers saw as problematic features in America’s developing democracy. Next to discussing these perceived weaknesses of the American democratic system, students will explore issues such as the differences between the liberal and republican traditions, the role of intellectuals in a democracy, and the relationship between the country’s racism and its political developments.
Usable Pasts (seminar, block 5, 6ECTS)
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?