American Studies majors, in consultation with their advisor, must define an area of concentration and complete six courses in that area. The area of concentration should be designed to fit the particular interests of a student, but it must include subjects in at least two disciplines. Students may find courses relevant to their concentration that they wish to take but that are not on the American Studies course list. With the approval of the AMST Director of Undergraduate Studies, students may count two such courses towards fulfilling the major.
Students are encouraged to construct and define their own area of concentration. What follows below are mere possibilities – there are many more!
American Capitalism
AMST 1540 American Capitalism
AMST 2016 Understanding Global Capitalism Through Service Learning
AMST 2955 Socialism in America
AMST 3022 Capitalism and American Democracy 1880-2010
AMST 3060 Recent History of American Workers
AMST 3549 Capitalism, Competition and Conflict in the Global Economy
AMST 3562 Thinking from a Different Place: Indigenous Philosophies
AMST 3870 The History of Consumption: From Wedgwood to Wal-Mart
American Institutions
AMST 1115 Introduction to American Government and Politics
AMST 2422 The History of the US Prison
AMST 2710 America’s Promise: Social and Political Context of American Education
AMST 3161 The American Presidency
AMST 3181 US Congress
AMST 3202 The US Supreme Court and Crime
AMST 3072 The US Constitution: Crisis, Change and Legitimacy
AMST 4202 The Politics of Inequality: The History of the US Welfare State
AMST 4218 History of the United States Senate
Cultural Studies
AMST 2010 Popular Culture in the United States, 1900-1945
AMST 2020 Popular Culture in the United States, 1950 to the Present
AMST 2260 Music of the 1960s
AMST 3450 Cultural and Intellectual Life of 19th Century Americans
AMST 3720 Food, Gender & Culture
AMST 4508 Exhibiting Cultures: Museums, Monuments, Representation, and Display
AMST 4650 American Paranoia
AMST 4702 Cultural Politics of the 1970s
AMST 4745 The Turning Point: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s
Visual Studies
AMST 2000 Introduction to Visual Studies
AMST 2160 Television
AMST 2760 American Cinema
AMST 3010 Photography and the American Dream
AMST 3560 Modeling Race, Fashioning Beauty
AMST 3740 Painting Nineteenth Century America
AMST 3809 Politics of 70s Films
Political & Social Movements
AMST 2220 From the New Deal to the Age of Reagan
AMST 2353 Civil Rights vs. Human Rights in the Black Freedom Struggle
AMST 3002 Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
AMST 3240 Varieties of American Dissent, 1880-1990
AMST 3590 The Black Radical Tradition in the US
AMST 4021 American Conservative Thought
AMST 4112 The Politics of Change
AMST 4313 The Beautiful Struggle: Radical Aesthetics and Politics
Immigration
AMST 1800 Immigration in US History
AMST 2251 US Immigration Narratives
AMST 3065 Immigrant America: Race and Citizenship in Modern Working-Class History
AMST 3762 Law, Latin@s, Illegality
AMST 4032 Immigration and Politics Research Seminar
AMST 4122 Immigrants in New Destinations: Settlement, Integration, Backlash
AMST 4533 The Lower East Side: Jews and the Immigrant City
Race & Ethnicity
AMST 2010 Latinos in the United States
AMST 2130 Introduction to Asian American History
AMST 2660 Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: Unlearning Native American History
AMST 3191 Racial and Ethnic Politics in the US
AMST 3405 Multicultural issues in Education
AMST 4402 Women in Hip Hop
AMST 4533 The Lower East Side: Jews and the Immigrant City
AMST 4587 Critical Race Theory
AMST 4970 Jim Crow and Exclusion-Era America
Legal & Constitutional
AMST 3001 Constitutional Law and US Politics
AMST 3072 The US Constitution: Crisis, Change and Legitimacy
AMST 3131 The Nature, Functions, and Limits of Law
AMST 3281 Constitutional Politics: The US Supreme Court
AMST 3635 Human Rights and Global Justice
AMST 4435 Education, Social Justice and the Law
AMST 4635 Feminist Theory/Law and Society
American Environment
(CRP 1100 The American City)
AMST 2581 Environmental History
(COML 3111 Literature, Art, and the Environment)
(SOC 3240 Environment, Society, and Land)
AMST 3451 Cultural and Intellectual Life of 20th Century Americans
AMST 3330 Ways of Knowing: Indigenous and Place-Based Ecological Knowledge
AMST 3675 The Environmental Imagination in American Literature
AMST 4102 Urban Ecology & Politics
Community Engaged Learning & Research
AMST 1104 Race and Ethnicity in the United States: Social Constructs, Real World Consequences
(LSP 2300 Cultures and Communities)
AMST 2710 America’s Promise: Social and Political Context of American Education
(ANTHR 3462 Democratizing Research: Participation, Action, and Research)
AMST 4033 Race and Social Entrepreneurship: Food Justice and Urban Reform
(HE 4080 Fieldwork in Diversity and Professional Practice: Community and Public Service)
(WRIT 4130 Service Learning for Democratic Citizenship: Literature of American Social Action Movements)
AMST 4435 Education, Social Justice, and the Law