Minor in American Studies
American Studies at MIT offers students the opportunity to organize subjects from various fields (e.g., history, anthropology, literature, political science, music, art, architecture, and urban planning) into personally constructed interdisciplinary programs as a way of gaining an integrated understanding of American society and culture. Students can focus on any of several areas of interest, such as American literature; folklore and popular culture; black history and culture; women's studies; American history, politics, or law; the history of science and technology; and American art, architecture, or music. Thus, a program in American Studies is ideal for preparing students for further work not only in the various humanistic fields, but also in law, urban planning, management, architecture, engineering, medicine, teaching, and the media.
The program has three primary objectives:
- To understand the underlying system of beliefs that informs every aspect of American culture—its myths, institutions, politics and literature, its characteristic dreams and rituals.
- To understand the uses and limits of different methods and intellectual disciplines as tools for exploring the complexities of a culture.
- To understand the American present in relation to the American past.
The minor consists of six subjects (at least three of which must be MIT subjects), from at least two of the following three disciplinary areas:
- Area I: Humanities and the Arts
- Area II: Social Sciences; Science, Technology, and Society
- Area III: Historical Studies
Five of the six minor subjects may be counted toward the eight-subject Institute HASS Requirement. Of these five, at most one shall count toward satisfaction of the HASS Distribution Requirement. Of the six subjects required for the minor, at least four cannot be counted toward a major or another minor.
| Area I: Humanities and the Arts | ||
| American Literature | ||
| Introduction to Film Studies | ||
| Understanding Television | ||
| The American Novel | ||
| Race and Identity in American Literature | ||
| American Authors | ||
| Music of the Americas | ||
| Jazz | ||
| Musicals | ||
| Film Music | ||
| American Popular Music | ||
| Studies in Jazz and Popular Music | ||
| Asian American Theater | ||
| Contemporary American Theater | ||
| Writing and Rhetoric: Writing about Sports | ||
| Communicating in American Culture (ELS) | ||
| Writing about Race | ||
| South Asian America: Transnational Media, Culture, and History | ||
| Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies | ||
| Silent Film | ||
| Area II: Social Sciences; Science, Technology, and Society | ||
| Introduction to Housing, Community, and Economic Development (not a HASS subject) | ||
| Youth Political Participation | ||
| Public Finance and Public Policy | ||
| Introduction to the American Political Process | ||
| Congress and the American Political System I | ||
| Electoral Politics, Public Opinion, and Democracy | ||
| Public Opinion and American Democracy | ||
| Race, Ethnicity, and American Politics | ||
| Mass Incarceration in the United States | ||
| The War at Home: American Politics and Society in Wartime 1 | ||
| US Social Policy | ||
| American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future | ||
| US National Security Policy | ||
| US Military Power | ||
| American Dream: Exploring Class in the US | ||
| Latinx in the Age of Empire | ||
| Technology in American History | ||
| Science Activism: Gender, Race, and Power | ||
| History of Manufacturing in America | ||
| The Civil War and the Emergence of Modern America: 1861-1890 1 | ||
| Science in American Life: 1920-2020 | ||
| African Americans in Science, Technology, and Medicine | ||
| The Long War Against Cancer | ||
| The History of MIT | ||
| Race, Gender and Social Inequality in Reproductive Health Care | ||
| The Science of Race, Sex, and Gender | ||
| Area III: Historical Studies | ||
| American Urban History | ||
| History of the Built Environment in the US | ||
| The War at Home: American Politics and Society in Wartime 1 | ||
| From Yellow Peril to Model Minority: Asian American History to 1968 | ||
| American History to 1865 | ||
| American History since 1865 | ||
| US Environmental Governance: from National Parks to the Green New Deal | ||
| The American Revolution | ||
| The History of American Presidential Elections | ||
| The United States in the Cold War Era | ||
| War and American Society | ||
| Metropolis: A Comparative History of New York City | ||
| Riots, Strikes, and Conspiracies in American History | ||
| History of the US Supreme Court | ||
| American Classics | ||
| The Black Radical Tradition in America | ||
| MIT and Slavery: Research | ||
| MIT and Slavery: Publication | ||
| The Indigenous History of MIT | ||
| American Consumer Culture | ||
| Race, Crime, and Citizenship in American Law | ||
| Gender and the Law in US History | ||
| Downtown | ||
| Christianity in America | ||
| Global Commodities, American Dreams | ||
| The Civil War and the Emergence of Modern America: 1861-1890 1 | ||
| Sexual and Gender Identities in the Modern United States | ||
| Total Units | 72 | |
| 1 | Counts as Area II or III, but not both. |
The subject list above is not exhaustive. Additional information can be obtained from the American Studies advisor, Professor Christopher Capozzola, E51-284, 617-452-4960, or from the SHASS Dean's Office, 4-240, 617-253-3450.
