Teaching
For students born and raised in the United States, American studies can at times seem abstract. The discipline asks questions that can be difficult, if not impossible, to answer definitively, particularly for students who have taken the country and its culture for granted. Unlike many majors that build vertically on previous course material, students can enter the American studies major from many different jumping-off points.
This horizontal structure makes it easy for students to make connections between concepts and reality and between different expressions of American identity. Professors take into account conflicting narratives and ideas in order to explore nationhood and identity. Everything is fair game in American studies, with the idea that no one event or circumstance happens without a trigger. Students in this major are encouraged look at their own culture from an anthropological perspective. The American studies curriculum fosters this perspective as a way for students to view their nation from outside its borders.
