About the Program

American Studies is located in the O'Connor House. The department is taught by an interdisciplinary faculty of 19. Courses include African American History, The History of Jazz, Baseball and American Culture, Memory and Commemoration in American Culture, Museums and Memory, History of the South, and American Modernist Literature. The department's flagship course is the year-long senior seminar, North By South: The Great African American Migration 1900-1960. The 2006-07 American Studies senior seminar "Global Cities: Americans in Paris" in which students traveled to Paris to research the dialogue between America and Paris as expressed through the exchange of music culminated in the project Transpositions: Black Music and Identity in Paris. American Studies stresses the personal side of American life examining the role of music, art, memory, family, and the many manifestations of popular culture within a given time period. Courses generally combine lectures, readings, audio and visual media, and lively discussion. Personal and group presentations are a routine part of American Studies classes.