The extensive and wide-ranging publications of our diverse faculty illustrate the richness of the field. From Native wampum belts to rock ‘n’ roll, from urban fashion to 9/11 memorials, American Studies examines a range of materials to emphasize integrated approaches to the study of American history and culture.
Members of the Department of American Studies are accomplished scholars and devoted teachers who introduce students to interdisciplinary work in the study of American culture and seek to advance critical skills in thinking, analysis, and writing. In American Studies classes students learn how to locate and evaluate primary sources and scholarly texts, how to write effectively and clearly, and how to apply conceptual frameworks to their lived experience and practice.
The department promotes socially engaged and historically grounded research. Students are encouraged to conduct research projects and field studies that explore the rich cultural history, ethnic and class diversity, and community networks of New Jersey. Exploration of the local and regional environment is grounded in transnational approaches to the field of American Studies wherein students are encouraged to think beyond geopolitical and historical boundaries and to consider the local within regional, national, and global networks and processes.
American Studies Solidarity Statement
We in the Department of American Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick, home to the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies minor and founded amid the Civil Rights movement, mourn the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the many others killed by racist violence in the United States.
We stand in solidarity and support of the worldwide protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism. In this time of a global pandemic, in which Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at three times the rate of white Americans, we unequivocally affirm the preciousness of Black lives and the lives of all people of color across our communities.
More so now than ever, we commit to teaching, mentoring, and scholarship that insists that “America” is not defined by those in positions of power, but by all Americans--Black, Indigenous, people of color, immigrants, refugees, regardless of citizenship status and of all religious, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.
As scholars of American histor...
