2023-2024 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
American Studies
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Director: Brett Mizelle
Department Office: Faculty Offices 2 (FO2), Room 226
Telephone / FAX: (562) 985-4424 / (562) 985-5431
Website: American Studies Department website
Faculty: KT Bender (American Studies), Christopher Farrish (American Studies), Justin Gomer (American Studies), Larry Hashima (Asian and Asian American Studies), Brande Jackson (American Studies), Linda Maram (Asian and Asian American Studies), Brett Mizelle (History), Charles Ponce de Leon (History and American Studies), Preeti Sharma (American Studies).
Advisors: Brett Mizelle, CLA ATLAS Network (ATLAS website)
College: College of Liberal Arts
Courses: AMST
Career Possibilities
Advertising • Entertainment • Journalism • Management • Marketing • Mass Media (film, radio, television) • Politics • Professional Writing and Editing (creative or technical) • Public Relations • Publishing • Historian • Administrator in Historic and Cultural Preservation • Teacher • Museum Curator • Multimedia Specialist • Preservation and Environmental Law • College Instructor • Environmental Public History Review Specialist • Human Resources Manager • Systems Analysts • Insurance Broker (Some of these, and other careers, require additional education or experience. For more information, see the American Studies Website, the CSULB Careers website or an American Studies Advisor.)
About American Studies
As American Studies scholar George Lipsitz has noted, American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines American history, life and culture. The work of American Studies takes place both on campuses and in our communities. American Studies scholars investigate where the ideals of American democracy are at their finest and where they remain incomplete. We ask key questions like: What is an American? What are the lived experiences of people who inhabit our nation? How do race, class, gender, and sexuality shape these experiences? How and why is culture important to our lives and identities? How do we represent the past and what importance-and limitations-do these representations have? How and why does culture-including popular culture, the arts, and literature- serve as a site of social struggle? How do diverse groups within the Americas imagine their identities and their relation to the United States? What happens when we look at our world(s) from a variety of perspectives?
Why Choose American Studies?
American Studies at CSULB was first established in the 1970s and remains a vital, malleable, and growing academic enterprise, one known for the new questions it has posed, the new perspectives it has brought to the study of the cultures of the United States, and the new information it has introduced into scholarly and public conversations about national identity and experience. Students in this interdisciplinary program play an active role in their own education, working with the program director, faculty, and professional advisors to design their own plan of inquiry into various aspects of American society and culture.
American Studies majors and minors receive a broad liberal arts education focusing on American culture, traditions, artistic and material production, ideas, identities, and spaces. The major in American Studies offers a solid background for careers in law, journalism, public service, business, and education. The program also provides the foundation for graduate work in American Studies and related fields. In other words, the knowledge and skills our majors and minors acquire prepares them to succeed in just about any field and to have a critical yet empathetic understanding of the world in which we live.
ProgramsUndergraduate DegreesMinorCoursesAmerican Studies
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