Course summary

Our four-year American Studies degree is very attractive to those wanting to combine a deep understanding of the US with a full year of immersive study in North America. The course enables students to think in interdisciplinary ways about America both at home and around the world, including its extensive ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power influences. The course encourages you to integrate a variety of methods and approaches, allowing you to develop your critical and contextual thinking. As you progress, you have the choice to concentrate more on the history side of the course – with one of the largest groups of American historians in the UK, offering classes from the beginning of European colonization to the contemporary period – or concentrate more on American literary and cultural studies. At Manchester, we train our students to be attentive to the counter currents of US history, society and literature, and our course places a particular emphasis on the themes of race, capitalism, sexuality, the cultures of labour, political protest, environmental crises and questions of governance. You will learn how to analyse a wide range of texts and materials, including historical documents, literary works, social media communication, films, manuscripts, political rhetoric, marketing campaigns and popular music. Having developed these interpretive skills, you learn in deep ways about theories of change (and continuity) in a nation that continues to play a very powerful role in international politics, culture, and economics. From the second year onwards, you will have increasing choice from a range of research-led courses, gaining fluency in conceptual, empirical and contextual understandings of America. By the final year, you choose from a striking suite of imaginative, cutting-edge, interdisciplinary courses, while also completing a substantial piece of independent research.