American studies

Why do American studies at university? Actually, what even is American studies? Some students only discover this degree by accident (even though it’s been around in the UK since the 1950s), or encounter it through a sudden burst of curiosity during a university open day, sitting in on a talk by chance. Some develop a taste for it through the American components of A-level study: reading thrilling, dark novels and dramas like The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire or The Handmaid’s Tale, and finding out that the twentieth century really was the American century.

Is this your experience? Maybe studying the struggle for black civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, or the doomy paranoia of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, as part of a history A-level might inspire you to think about applying for an American studies programme. Perhaps it’s American movies, food or television that grabs you. Or perhaps the prospect of study and travel in a country that is incredibly diverse in both geography and culture, and that makes up half a continent, is tempting. Surely the trials and tribulations of the 2016 presidential campaign is a good reason to develop an interest in American politics. But there is no A-level in American studies, so a really in-depth understanding of the life of the so-called ‘superpower’ that has contributed so much to shaping our world and our imaginations for the last century can seem inaccessible to pre-university students.