The Program in American Culture is a dynamic, growing, and well-established undergraduate and graduate program designed to address specific populations, periods, and disciplines to provide an integrative and intercultural perspective. The Program is the home of Asian/Pacific American, Latino/a, Native American, and the emerging Arab American Studies, but also aspires to cover any and all topics within the field of American Studies. Among the program's strongest features are its interdisciplinarity (including literature, history, visual arts, psychology, film, and gender studies) and its emphasis on comparative ethnic experiences. Students and faculty work together to create a lively intellectual life, characterized by diversity, imagination, and social commitment.
Since its creation in 1952, the Program in American Culture has passed through two major phases. Initially, the Program arose from a desire among students and faculty in the English Department for a grasp of American experience broader than could be provided in the study of any one discipline. Its center of interest was defined as the study of values in America. In respect to method, the Program aspired to build bridges between the humanities and the social sciences. In substance, it linked past and present. Its goal was to foster comprehensive critical understandings of American life and culture solidly grounded in more than one academic discipline. In the early 1970s, the Program became newly conscious of the necessity of augmenting this original orientation by responding to the growing awareness in our society of the diversity and complexity of cultural experience in America. Since that time the Program has pledged itself to take a close look at sub-cultures determined by national origin, race, religion, and social status that exist alongside the dominant European-based culture in the United States, and to include in the curriculum the study of the role of women, as well as Asian American, Black, Latino, Native American, and ethnic minority cultures.
In 1984, the Program in American Culture set up a new curricular program in Latino Studies to help satisfy the growing national and local interest in the history and culture of Hispanic peoples in the United States. The Latino Studies Program at Michigan represents an effort to understand not only Hispanic culture in the United States but also the interconnections between the history, culture, and literature of all the Americas. Latino Studies is sponsored by the Program in American Culture and is housed in its quarters in Haven Hall. Latino Studies since its inception has been mainly an undergraduate program, but it is also designed to contribute significantly to the American Culture graduate program. With the growth of Latino Studies, graduate students in American Culture have sought out Latin American area faculty in History, Sociology, Anthropology, Romance Languages, and other departments.
The interdisciplinary program in Women's Studies has, since its establishment in 1973, been closely affiliated with the American Culture Program. The graduate Certificate in Women's Studies can be combined with either a master's or a doctoral degree in any graduate program at the University of Michigan. The Certificate aims to provide: an historical perspective on Women's Studies, both across and within disciplines; analyses of contemporary theoretical frameworks, methodologies, issues and topics and their relation to traditional disciplines; and an opportunity to broaden and enrich analytical skills in one or more disciplines while drawing on the interdisciplinary perspectives of Women's Studies. This program emphasizes the links between Women's Studies and traditional disciplines, illuminating the broader intellectual traditions that shape contemporary scholarship in the social sciences and humanities. Address all inquiries to: Women's Studies Program, 1122 Lane Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 (734-763-2047).
The Program in American Culture has responded to interests in popular culture and mass media as well as keeping its traditional concern with high culture. The first film course at this University was offered by a former director of the Program in American Culture, and students in the Program may now enroll in courses in film given in several departments. The Screen Arts and Culture Program (formerly Film and Video Studies Program), closely associated with the Program in American Culture, now offers undergraduate courses and research and technical facilities to students with committed interests in film and other contemporary media. Those students who seek a larger view of communications networks at the intersection of culture and social structure will find sympathetic faculty in Communication Studies and other departments.
Those persons desiring training in archival management as well as work in American studies may combine their interests through a joint program. Students interested in problems in the administration of modern as well as traditional archives and manuscript collections will find a variety of opportunities for study in this area with specialists in this emerging field. Located on the campus of the University are six important archival and manuscript collections which represent the spectrum of materials which constitute the historical record: the Clements Library, the Bentley Library, the Rare Book Collection, the Joseph A. Labadie Collection of Social Protest Literature, the Gerald R. Ford Library, and the ICPSR Data Archive.
