Department of American Studies
Bachelor of Arts in American Studies
Students on Summer 2018, Fall 2018, or Spring 2019 requirements AMSTBA
Requirements
The major requires at least 30 credit hours, including the requirements listed below.
- Introductory course. One (1) course:
- AMST-A 100 What Is America?
AMST-A 100 What Is America?
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores ideas about citizenship, national identity, and the social contract in the broader Americas. What makes us "Americans?" How do we define "America?" How does national identity compete with and relate to other forms of identity, such as social status or class, religious association, gender and sexuality, and racial or ethnic description?
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Intermediate course. Three (3) courses:
- AMST-A 150 Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
- AMST-A 200 Comparative American Identities
- AMST-A 201 U.S. Movements and Institutions
- AMST-A 202 U.S. Arts and Media
- AMST-A 203 American Cultures, Global Connectivities
- AMST-A 204 Race in American Art
- AMST-A 205 American Radicalism and Dissent
- AMST-A 275 Indigenous Worldviews in the Americas
- AMST-A 298 Special Topics in Arts and Humanities for American Studies
- AMST-A 299 Special Topics in Social and Historical Studies for American Studies
AMST-A 150 Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to Native American and Indigenous cultures, literature, history, arts, values, lifeways, spirituality, and social and political institutions. Focuses on global and hemispheric elements including North America.
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AMST-A 200 Comparative American Identities
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the formation of legal, social, cultural, and economic identities within the United States and within U.S.-controlled territories. Who counts as "American?" To what ends have citizens and non-citizens assumed, claimed, or refused "American" identity? This course employs a comparative frame in considering elite and subordinated classes (and/or genders, races, ethnicities, sexualities); institutional and countercultural forms of self-definition; official history and alternative acts of collective memory.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
AMST-A 201 U.S. Movements and Institutions
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Study and analysis of a social movement, an institutional structure, or an otherwise clearly delimited arena of social regulation and public activity. Constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing an object of social study. Topics vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AMST-A 202 U.S. Arts and Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Interdisciplinary approaches to a cultural genre (e.g., science fiction, pop art, jazz), discourse (e.g., individualism, family values, globalization) or medium (e.g., comics, television, the Internet). Constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing an object of cultural study. Recent topics have included Images of the Body, Jazz and Cultural Hierarchy, and Youth Cultures.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
AMST-A 203 American Cultures, Global Connectivities
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Hamburgers, Hollywood, Hip-hop. Explores what gets defined as typically "American" and why. Considers how contending cultural perspectives on "America" serve to distinguish it from or connect it to other nations. Each topic analyzes specific cultural practices and products to locate U.S. and non-U.S. places in global contexts.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for up to 6 credit hours.
AMST-A 204 Race in American Art
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines representations of racial identity in American visual culture from the colonial period through the present with a particular focus on evolving conceptions of Native American, African American, European American, Latino, and Asian American identities.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
AMST-A 205 American Radicalism and Dissent
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores the political, cultural and intellectual history of radical social movements in the U.S., including abolitionism, feminism, anarchism, socialism, communism, civil rights, black liberation, gay rights, antiwar protest, and the 1960s New Left, and examines the contributions these movements made to the diversity of American life and thought.
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AMST-A 275 Indigenous Worldviews in the Americas
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A survey of some basic aspects of indigenous lifeways in the Americas, this course introduces comparative cultural analysis, providing a foundational course for those interested in thinking about how others think and how we think about otherness. Students will examine mythology, ritual, health, art, and philosophy within the context of colonialism and globalization.
- Summer 2025CASE DUScourseSpring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
AMST-A 298 Special Topics in Arts and Humanities for American Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Study and analysis of a single, closely focused American studies topic within arts and humanities. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on the refinement of students' skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of fine arts, literature, film, and popular culture.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
AMST-A 299 Special Topics in Social and Historical Studies for American Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Study and analysis of a single, closely focused American studies topic within social and historical studies. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on the refinement of students' skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of public policy, political, economic, and social realities.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Advanced courses. 18 credit hours:
- Any AMST-A 300–399
- Any AMST-A 400–499
- Any AMST-E 300–399
- Any AMST-E 400–499
- Any AMST-X 300–399
- Any AMST-X 400–499
- Major GPA, Hours, and Minimum Grade Requirements.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed in courses taken through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed at the 300–499 level.
- Except for the GPA requirement, a grade of C- or higher is required for a course to count toward a requirement in the major.
- A GPA of at least 2.000 for all courses taken in the major—including those where a grade lower than C- is earned—is required.
- Exceptions to major requirements may be made with the approval of the department's Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to final approval by the College of Arts and Sciences.
The Bachelor of Arts degree requires at least 120 credit hours, to include the following:
- College of Arts and Sciences Credit Hours. At least 100 credit hours must come from College of Arts and Sciences disciplines.
- Upper Division Courses. At least 42 credit hours (of the 120) must be at the 300–499 level.
- College Residency. Following completion of the 60th credit hour toward degree, at least 36 credit hours of College of Arts and Sciences coursework must be completed through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- College GPA. A cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.000 is required for all courses taken at Indiana University.
- CASE Requirements. The following College of Arts and Sciences Education (CASE) requirements must be completed:
- CASE Foundations
- CASE Breadth of Inquiry
- CASE Culture Studies
- CASE Critical Approaches: 1 course
- CASE Foreign Language: Proficiency in a single foreign language through the second semester of the second year of college-level coursework
- CASE Intensive Writing: 1 course
- CASE Public Oral Communication: 1 course
- Major. Completion of the major as outlined in the Major Requirements section above.
Most students must also successfully complete the Indiana University Bloomington General Education program.
Subject areas
- Any AAAD course that carries degree credit
- Any AAST course that carries degree credit
- Any ABEH course that carries degree credit
- Any AFRI course that carries degree credit
- Any AMST course that carries degree credit
- Any ANTH course that carries degree credit
- Any ARTH course that carries degree credit
- Any ASCS course that carries degree credit
- Any AST course that carries degree credit
- Any BIOC course that carries degree credit
- Any BIOL course that carries degree credit
- Any BIOT course that carries degree credit
- Any CEUS course that carries degree credit
- Any CHEM course that carries degree credit
- Any CJUS course that carries degree credit
- Any CLAS course that carries degree credit
- Any CLLC course that carries degree credit
- Any CMLT course that carries degree credit
- Any COGS course that carries degree credit
- Any COLL course that carries degree credit
- Any EALC course that carries degree credit
- Any EAS course that carries degree credit
- Any ECON course that carries degree credit
- Any ENG course that carries degree credit
- Any EURO course that carries degree credit
- Any FOLK course that carries degree credit
- Any FRIT course that carries degree credit
- Any GEOG course that carries degree credit
- Any GER course that carries degree credit
- Any GLLC course that carries degree credit
- Any GNDR course that carries degree credit
- Any HHC course that carries degree credit
- Any HISP course that carries degree credit
- Any HIST course that carries degree credit
- Any HON course that carries degree credit
- Any HPSC course that carries degree credit
- Any HUBI course that carries degree credit
- Any IMP course that carries degree credit
- Any INST course that carries degree credit
- Any INTL course that carries degree credit
- Any JSTU course that carries degree credit
- Any LAMP course that carries degree credit
- Any LATS course that carries degree credit
- Any LING course that carries degree credit
- Any LTAM course that carries degree credit
- Any MATH course that carries degree credit
- Any MELC course that carries degree credit
- Any MEST course that carries degree credit
- Any MLS course that carries degree credit
- Any MSCH course that carries degree credit
- Any NEUS course that carries degree credit
- Any OVST course that carries degree credit
- Any PACE course that carries degree credit
- Any PHIL course that carries degree credit
- Any PHYS course that carries degree credit
- Any POLS course that carries degree credit
- Any PSY course that carries degree credit
- Any REEI course that carries degree credit
- Any REL course that carries degree credit
- Any RMI course that carries degree credit
- Any SEAS course that carries degree credit
- Any SGIS course that carries degree credit
- Any SLAV course that carries degree credit
- Any SLHS course that carries degree credit
- Any SLST course that carries degree credit
- Any SOAD course that carries degree credit
- Any SOC course that carries degree credit
- Any STAT course that carries degree credit
- Any THTR course that carries degree credit
Upon completion of the B.A. in American Studies, graduates will be able to:
- Set the history, politics, and culture of the United States in a global and comparative context.
- Think logically and analytically, to make detailed observations, and to formulate interdisciplinary interpretations of the literature, art, music, and mass culture of the United States, Canada, and the Americas.
- Collect, document, maintain, and manage evidence, and organize and compose interpretive and research essays.
- Communicate orally and in writing.