About our Program

American Culture Studies (AMCS) is a program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University that fosters the cross-disciplinary study of America. We promote an ecumenical, multidisciplinary, pluralistic, and transnational view of studies of America and associated historical, societal, political, material, and cultural contexts and conditions. Our approach is theoretically and empirically inclusive, emphasizing the enormous diversity within American society and the wider world. We are especially concerned with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and other social contrasts that spur so much debate, expression, and conflict within the United States and across borders and transnational spaces.

For undergraduates and graduate students, including the Harvey Graduate Fellows and Harvey Undergraduate Scholars programs, AMCS offers diverse curricular emphases and opportunities for cross-disciplinary study, and mentoring from faculty in different fields who can support their intellectual growth. The AMCS Major includes a series of concentration areas on themes such as race and ethnicity, popular culture, social thought and social problems, and visual, material, and digital cultures. Both the MA program and the PhD Certificate program offer similarly rich areas of study.

Above all else, our aim is to foster expansive and critical perspectives and understandings of the historical, societal, and cultural dimensions of life across the vast spacetime of America.