Graduate Programs in American Civilization
The Department of American Civilization at Brown University encourages the interdisciplinary study of the diverse cultures, groups, and experiences that make up American life. As one of the oldest American Studies programs in the nation, its graduate students and faculty represent a community of innovative scholars committed to defining new directions in research, teaching across the disciplines, and reaching out to diverse audiences.
The graduate program in American Civilization provides students with rigorous training in the methods of interdisciplinary work while allowing them the freedom to follow their own academic interests and goals. Graduate students design their own course of study within the guidelines set up by the department, working with faculty both in the department and throughout the university. Recent graduate students have been doing exciting new work in areas as diverse as African American history, Asian American and Latino culture and politics, childhood development, public history, transnational popular culture, film, material culture, religion, and the history of sexuality and gender.
The primary goal of the graduate program in American Civilization is to train students to become knowledgeable and productive scholars and public humanists who will significantly contribute to the communities in which they work and live. The program produces graduates who are:
- knowledgeable about the changing and complex intellectual landscape of the modern university;
- originators of new and innovative research across the disciplines; and
- part of a new generation of active and committed teachers and public humanists.
Graduates of the department have gone on to work in archives, museums, and historical societies, as well as a variety of college and university departments including history, English, women's studies, communications, and American Studies. You can see more details of their work under Recent Dissertations.