American Studies

American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates the study of history, literature, and critical theory, but also welcomes research methods from a variety of other disciplines.

Scholarship in American studies has most often concerned the United States. In the past decades, however, it has also sought to study other nations and territories in the Americas, as well as American interactions with countries across the globe. Subjects studied within the field are varied, but often examine the histories of American communities, ideologies, or cultural productions. Examples might include topics in American social movements, literature, media, tourism, folklore, and intellectual history.

Fields studying specific American ethnic or racial groups are considered to be both independent of and included within the broader American studies discipline. This includes African American studies, Latin American studies, Asian American studies, American Indian studies, and others.

Vernon Louis Parrington is often cited as the founder of American studies for his three-volume Main Currents in American Thought, which combines the methodologies of literary criticism and historical research; it won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize. In the introduction to Main Currents in American Thought, Parrington described his field:

The "broad path" that Parrington describes formed a scholastic course of study for Henry Nash Smith, who received a Ph.D. from Harvard's interdisciplinary program in "History and American Civilization" in 1940, setting an academic precedent for present-day American Studies programs.

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