What is "America?"
What does it mean to be "American?"
AMCS travels to new locations to explore fundamental questions of identity through the study of interdependent relationships between cultures and places. By visiting cities, landmarks, historic sites, museums, and popular culture venues -- sites incisively understood through direct engagement with rich material, historical, political, and social meanings -- students become immersed observers and learners within diverse local populations and communities.
While specific content changes annually, the distinctive On Location model is always the same: participants visit historical and cultural sites, engaging with them in a multidisciplinary way. Students learn from faculty in different fields and meet experts and collaborators who provide historical background, explain a given community’s investment in the sites in question, or otherwise contextualize critical questions and issues. Students also learn by “doing,” gathering data through participation in a variety of rich local sources, such as public events, extended tours, cultural landscapes, and art and museum exhibits.
