BA American Studies

Our four-year American Studies degree is very attractive to those wanting to combine a deep understanding of the US with a full year of immersive study in North America. The course enables students to think in interdisciplinary ways about America both at home and around the world, including its extensive ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power influences. The course encourages you to integrate a variety of methods and approaches, allowing you to develop your critical and contextual thinking. As you progress, you have the choice to concentrate more on the history side of the course – with one of the largest groups of American historians in the UK, offering classes from the beginning of European colonization to the contemporary period – or concentrate more on American literary and cultural studies.

At Manchester, we train our students to be attentive to the counter currents of US history, society and literature, and our course places a particular emphasis on the themes of race, capitalism, sexuality, the cultures of labour, political protest, environmental crises and questions of governance. You will learn how to analyse a wide range of texts and materials, including historical documents, literary works, social media communication, films, manuscripts, political rhetoric, marketing campaigns and popular music. Having developed these interpretive skills, you learn in deep ways about theories of change (and continuity) in a nation that continues to play a very powerful role in international politics, culture, and economics.

From the second year onwards, you will have increasing choice from a range of research-led courses, gaining fluency in conceptual, empirical and contextual understandings of America. By the final year, you choose from a striking suite of imaginative, cutting-edge, interdisciplinary courses, while also completing a substantial piece of independent research.

You will study at a university in the US or Canada in Year 3. 

A list of exchange partners, and further information on the scheme is available on the  American Studies Study Abroad  page, as well as via the University's  Study Abroad  scheme.

In Year 1 and 2, you will learn through a combination of lectures, seminars, and small-group tutorials.

Lectures are used to sketch an outline of the major themes and questions, and often to examine the wider significance certain topics have had in society or among scholars.

Seminars usually involve groups of around 12 students, enabling you to discuss a particular text in detail, or to debate a specific subject or question.

To benefit from lectures and seminars you will spend a good amount of time preparing through reading, taking notes, and drafting and writing essays. 

On some units, students are also taught in regular tutorials, which are small tutor-led sessions, and are used to discuss a draft of an essay, or provide feedback on work already submitted.

Several final-year course units are also taught through a weekly workshop model, in which students work collaboratively with each other on a research project, assignment, or presentation.

Your degree is completed by your final-year dissertation, which is undertaken under the supervision of a specialist, and will allow you to carry out independent research and produce an extended piece of writing.

Our assessment methods for this course are designed to improve your ability to work and think independently, to express your ideas with clarity, and to allow you to produce imaginative and incisive interpretations of the subject.

We are keen for our students to learn to write for different audiences. To do this you will produce varied written work, including essays, journals, gobbet responses and your final-year dissertation.

Most units are assessed through a combination of an essays and final examinations. American Studies modules also allow you to undertake more creative forms of assessment, such as producing visual essays, films, historical map-making and short radio-style oral essays. All modules encourage you to work collaboratively with other students.

The University of Manchester has one of the strongest collections of archival, printed, and digitised materials relating to the Americas anywhere in the UK. Some of these materials, such as those relating to the transatlantic abolitionist movement, civil rights and race relations and 19th century American popular culture are housed at the University's John Rylands Library, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Centre, and the University Special Collections Library.

The University Library, which has benefited from Manchester's long history of scholarship in this field, has one of the largest collections of electronic databases relating to the US, providing access to important newspapers, literary works and movements, entertainment and popular culture journals, as well as unique materials relating to US politics, civil rights and black power groups, and the cultural industries.

Further details on these resources can be found on the subject's Facilities page.