Program and Course Info

American Studies is an interdisciplinary, two-semester course sequence that explores the many voices and visions of American culture and experience. This foundational course draws together multiple disciplines, including but not limited to literature, history, visual art, film, music, philosophy, and theology. This multidisciplinary approach allows instructors to draw on their expertise and interests. That said, this foundational course has a clear set of shared, mutually reinforcing goals: to build those academic skills fundamental to the humanities and to guide students in an exploration of the construction of American identities. Students interrogate significant historical and cultural moments by analyzing a variety of issues, values, and perspectives. 

This course gives students the tools to navigate the tensions between the aspirations of a democratic, pluralistic society and the realities of unequal power structures in both historical and contemporary America. This approach includes both the recognition and valuing of difference—different beliefs, different backgrounds, different stories, different perspectives—and the effort to find common humanity. In keeping with the independent, critical thinking skills fostered by the design of this course, students examine a wide range of texts and artifacts to construct their own nuanced understandings of the complexities of the past and the present. 

American Studies has small class sizes and offers extensive practice in critical reading, analysis and interpretation, and academic writing. This course confers credits in both history/social science and English but is not intended to provide exhaustive coverage in either discipline. Instead, it fosters students’ proficiency in critical thinking and reading, writing and communication, and civic engagement—skills foundational to NCSSM’s senior Humanities courses and future academic work across all disciplines. 

American Studies II is the second part of an interdisciplinary, two-semester course sequence that explores the many voices and visions of American culture and experience. This foundational course draws together multiple disciplines, including but not limited to literature, history, visual art, economics, film, music, philosophy, and theology. It uses a broadly chronological approach to study American history and literature from Reconstruction to the present day. Through the exploration of both primary and secondary sources and their contemporary interpretations and relevance, students interrogate significant historical and cultural moments by analyzing a variety of issues, values, and perspectives. This course gives students the tools to navigate the tensions between the aspirations of a democratic, pluralistic society and the realities of unequal power structures in both historical and contemporary America. American Studies fosters students’ proficiency in critical thinking, reading, writing, and oral communication and offers models for civic engagement. The interdisciplinary nature of American Studies develops skills foundational to NCSSM’s senior Humanities courses and future academic work across all disciplines. 

Meeting Pattern: Three 50-minute and one 90-minute periods per week.