Majors
The Department of American Culture offers two majors: one in American Culture and the other in Latina/o Studies. Each of these provide students with flexibility while assuring a core set of skills courses and experiences. Students in these programs grapple with the most pressing issues facing the nation. To puzzle over these questions, our students engage comparative ethnic studies, history, literature, film/media studies, religion, music, art, digital technologies, women's studies, folklore, sexuality studies, and ethnography. American Culture's curriculum allows students a better understanding of the nation's diversity and the U.S.'s role in a global context. We explore what it has meant — and continues to mean — to claim to be an "American." Appointments with the respective advisor can be scheduled online. If specified on the Advising page, appointments may be scheduled by emailing the respective advisor.
Minors
American Culture currently offers six minors: American Culture, Arab and Muslim American Studies; Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies; Digital Studies; Latina/o Studies; and Native American Studies. Students in our minors receive the skills to be quick thinking and culturally sophisticated in careers that range across a wide spectrum. Each minor gives students information and techniques from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines related to their interests.For details on the requirements for each minor, visit:
What can I do with an AC degree?
Position yourself for success in a global career. Develop a comprehensive perspective with flexible critical thinking, writing and speaking skills.
The curriculum in American Culture is a classic liberal arts education aimed to create citizens with a serious breadth of knowledge. Graduating students are conversant in social sciences. You would know a foreign language or two (possibly even ancient and impractical ones). You would be well versed in canonical literature. You would know how to think, how to write, and how to speak in public, academic, and business settings. Having mastered these skills, you would then find your way in the world. A degree in American Culture confers marketable and valuable skills that give our students an edge in pursuing a wide range of career paths.Ideally a traditional liberal arts program imparts skills to create "well-rounded" citizens. But the value of a college or university education is also about professionalization. Today, the American Culture curriculum develops the traditional liberal arts education skills of elasticity of mind and critical thinking abilities in combination with multi-world savvy and sophistication, and cultural interpretation and production dexterity necessary for success in a rapidly changing global economy. The customary liberal arts education has been updated with interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary boundary crossings that connect history and literature, politics and sociology, high culture and low.
The Department of American Culture aims to offer exactly this kind of quick thinking, fast moving, culturally sophisticated, multi-world education. We emphasize a new brand of ethnic studies, one rooted in global migration and movement, transnational identities, and unexpected juxtapositions. We put those insights into play with the world of cultural production and consumption: new media, music, technology, film. And we underpin the whole thing with an appreciation for the history, literature, and art that has been and continues to be produced from American centers and margins.
Armed with these skills, our graduates imagine a future...In the culture industries:
- Publishing
- Journalism
- Television and film
- Criticism
- Media
- Sports
In public and civic service:
- Law and politics
- Social activism
- Local, state, and federal government
- Primary, secondary, and post-secondary education
- Public arts organizations
- Public history and museum work
In the work of the world:
- Labor organizing
- Non-governmental Organizations
- Teach for America
- The Peace Corps
- Non-Profit Organizations
Questions?
Schedule an appointment with an advisor. Please note: American Culture does not typically offer advising over the summer months. If you need an appointment during this time, please e-mail the undergraduate program coordinator.
