Undergraduate Degrees

BA American Studies ( T700 )

UCAS Course Code:: T700
Duration:: 4 years
Attendance:: Full Time
Award:: Degree of Bachelor of Arts
School of Study:: American Studies
Brochure:: American Studies Undergraduate Brochure (PDF)
Typical A-Level Offer:: AAB-ABB (preferably including English Literature or History)

Overview
Why Choose Us
Course Profile
Year Abroad
Requirements
Fees and Funding
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The American Studies programme is an interdisciplinary course, enabling students to study American history and literature, as well as politics and film if they so wish. The programme invites students to engage with diverse forms of cultural expression: novels; poetry; photographs; paintings; historical and political documents; classic texts; bestsellers; movies.

Course Structure

American Studies at UEA begins with introductory modules that provide a foundation in many aspects of American life and culture, from dispossession of Native Americans to the foreign policy of Barack Obama.

In your second year you are invited to choose from a wide range of seminars on topics such as American Drama 1945-1970, American and Vietnam, American Bestsellers. Also available are interdisciplinary American Studies units which focus on a period, like The American 1960s, or study American values in a wide range of cultural forms, such as The American West or, Native American Literature and Film.

Students on a four year programme spend their third year studying at an American, Canadian or Australian university. All students in their final year will have the option of taking advanced seminars in interdisciplinary subjects (e.g. Race and Violence in 20th Century American), seminars in American writing (American Gothic; Signs and Clues; Detective Fiction). For those choosing to emphasis history, the heart of the final year is a two-semester documents-based Special Subject in American history, focusing, for example, on American Slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, Native American history or the Cold War.

Assessment

Key skills, issues and ideas are introduced in lectures given by all members of faculty. These are accompanied by more specialist study, undertaken in small seminar groups. You will also spend time studying and researching in the library. You will be assessed at the end of each semester on the basis of coursework and, at the end of each year by examination. In your final year, you will write a dissertation on a topic of your choice and with the advice of tutors. There is no final examination. Your final degree result is determined by the marks you receive in years two and four.

Course Organiser:Dr. Rebecca Tillett

First Class Teaching

The School of American Studies prides itself on achieving the highest standards of teaching, as well as offering first rate provision of course information, grading, and feedback to students on their work. Our teaching is monitored internally by a comprehensive programme of reporting by the students themselves, and by annual review of these reports. All external audits of teaching quality in the last ten years have rated us as "Excellent".

Choice

Modules taught in the School range across American culture, literature, history, politics and film. This means that in your second and final years you shape your own degree, by choosing from over fifty lecture or seminar modules on topics as diverse as the cultural history of American music, US foreign policy, visual culture, African American and Native American history and culture, drama, poetry, the classic novels of the nineteenth century, and much more besides.

Academic Support

To help you shape your degree and chose your modules you will have an Academic Adviser who is a member of faculty within the School, and who stays with you throughout your time at UEA.

Friendly Community

The School of American Studies provides an academic and social ‘home’ for students and teaching staff. Offices are located close together, and all teaching staff hold regular ‘open door’ Office Hours. Students can join the UEA American Studies Society, which organises social events, and use the society’s Facebook page to stay in contact with their friends even when abroad.

Lively Academic Environment

Here at UEA we are engaged in cutting-edge interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research that seeks to break new ground in the field of American Studies. As committed university teachers, we translate that work into an exciting and constantly evolving range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Why not take a tour of our website and find out what we are researching and teaching in the School of American Studies?

Unrivalled Year Abroad Programme

We offer every one of our undergraduate students enrolled on a four year degree programme the opportunity to study abroad at one of forty American universities located across the country, from New England to California, Alaska to Louisiana. We also have placements in Canada, and some of our students may elect to spend the first half of their year abroad in the USA or Canada and the second half in Australia.

Half Year's Fee

Our students pay only half a year’s UK fees for their entire academic year spent overseas. This means that you pay the equivalent of only 3 ½ years’ worth of fees for your four years of study.

Great Sources of Financial Support

American Studies students will be eligible for University bursaries (as outlined in the University's general information). In addition, however, we offer half of our first years £1000 Arthur Miller Scholarships to those scoring top marks in their A level exams, to help finance their year abroad. This is awarded only to students in the school who will be going abroad and is paid out at the end of the second year.

Employment Opportunities

Our graduates find work in a very wide range of occupations, from research to publishing, and from teaching to banking. The extra skills and confidence gained from Study Abroad gives American Studies graduates an advantage in the job market.

Internationally renowned Literary Festival

Each year, UEA brings major writers from the USA and around the world to its International Literary Festival, open to the public and – of course – our students, too. Visitors have included Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Elmore Leonard, Gore Vidal, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.

Compulsory Study (120 credits)

Students must study the following modules for 120 credits:

Name	Code	Credits
CONTAINING MULTITUDES: AMERICAN HISTORY I	AMSA1F09	20
The aim of this module is to provide students with a survey of the United States from its origins in revolution to its emergence as a leading industrial power. Students in American Studies four-year programmes also take the complementary module American History:1900 - Present (AMSA1F04), which is taught in the Spring Semester. The module is taught by means of a weekly lecture and a weekly seminar. Attendance at both lectures and seminars is compulsory. Further information on the timing of the seminar can be found in the published timetable.
CONTAINING MULTITUDES: AMERICAN HISTORY II	AMSA1F04	20
This module continues the introduction to American History: Making a Nation, 1763-1900 (AMSA1F09). Covering the period 1900 to the present, it traces the development of the United States from the American Civil War to the end of the Cold War and beyond. Students attend a weekly seminar and an associated lecture series. Further information on the timing of the seminar can be found in the published timetable.
IMAGINING AMERICA: LITERATURE I	AMSA1F07	20
Imagining America is a level one module designed to introduce the major writers and themes of literature in the United States. For this module there will be a weekly lecture and a one-hour seminar. Lecture Slot: Monday, 1200-1300. Further information on the timing of the seminar can be found in the published timetable.
IMAGINING AMERICA: LITERATURE II	AMSA1F02	20
The American Self is a level one unit designed to extend and develop an introduction to the major writers and themes of literature in the United States. For this unit there will be a weekly lecture and a one hour seminar.
READING CULTURES I: AMERICAN ICONS	AMSA1F17	20
This module provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary research methods and writing skills that are essential for students undertaking a degree programme in the School of American Studies. Students will be encouraged to look at reading American culture across disciplines and media, and to develop their own strategies for learning, from note taking and planning, through locating and engaging with critical opinions, to producing and evaluating academic writing. This module is intended as an introduction to interdisciplinary scholarship and its transferable skills.
READING CULTURES II: IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES	AMSA1F18	20
The module develops and expands the research methods, writing skills, and oral skills acquired in Reading Cultures I: American Icons. By continuing the exploration of contemporary American culture and introducing cultural and critical theory as a means to engage with current ideas and ideologies circulating around American cultural icons, the module will encourage exploration of America’s changing position in the world. The module is intended to further facilitate skills in reading, writing, analysis, synthesis, independent thinking, and confidence as self-supporting learners in order to provide a strong foundation for work at levels 2 and 3.

Option A Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following modules:

Name	Code	Credits
ADOLESCENCE IN AMERICAN CULTURE POST-1950	AMSA2S53	20
This module will suggest that there is a preoccupation with adolescence in postwar and contemporary American culture, and will explore why this is the case. It will do so by introducing students to representations of adolescence in various disciplines, focusing particularly on literature, film, psychoanalysis and cultural studies. Questions to be explored will include: What is 'American' about adolescence? How do representations of adolescence vary according to factors such as gender, race and region? Is there a particular discipline or artistic form which is especially suited to depictions of adolescence?
AMERICAN MASCULINITIES	AMSA2S02	20
This interdisciplinary module will examine how national identity and white masculinity are entwined in a conflicting discourse of hegemonic and challenging narratives in the US. It will focus on a specific construction of white masculinity as it has become embedded and legitimized as the normative national identity against which all others are subordinated. The module will examine gender discourses that radically challenge this accepted link between masculinity, whiteness and national identity.
AMERICAN MUSIC	AMSA2S45	20
The first book published in the New World was a hymn book. Music, sacred and profane, has been at the centre of American lives ever since. Accordingly, this module will explore the history of American music - but it will also examine the way that its development tells a larger story. Focusing largely on the vernacular musical traditions we will encounter a wide range of musical styles and musicians, each of which has something vital to tell us about the shaping of America. After all, as Plato knew, "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake."
DOING IT YOURSELF: PUNK AND AMERICA	AMSA2S05	20
Although the exact provenance of ‘punk’ remains a contested issue, since its emergence in the mid-1970s this transnational musical and cultural phenomenon has become very much a part of the American grain. Indeed, punk’s capacity to adopt, appropriate, assimilate, and re-invent a vast and eclectic range of cultural styles, forms, and ideas, as well as its ‘do-it-yourself,’ places it in a longstanding American intellectual tradition of self-reliance and innovation. In this interdisciplinary module, we will attempt to define punk, and consider what it means to be punk, by examining its influence in music, film, poetry, and fiction. The unit will also explore the socio-political implications of punk in terms of gender, sexuality, and community, and question the possibility of punk in an increasingly globalised and commoditised world.
FILMS THAT MADE US AMERICAN: THE 1980S THROUGH THE MOVIES	AMSA2S03	20
The module will examine America in the1980s. It will look at youth culture, post-Vietnam revisionism and the ‘remasculinization of America’, yuppie culture, and the impact of both AIDS and drug addiction. Core factors of study in this module are the effects of both New Right morality upon the American socio-cultural landscape, and Ronald Reagan as postmodern president administrating to a ‘celluloid America’ of his own fantastic imagining. Overall, the module will offer the chance to analyse the tensions and contradictions of the decade as they were played out in both the content and structure of contemporary American film.
LOOKING AT PICTURES: PHOTOGRAPHY AND VISUAL CULTURE IN THE USA	AMSA2S48	20
Photographic portraits, family albums, anthropological illustrations, lynching postcards, advertisements, food packaging and fashion photos are just some of the pictures that will be "read" and analysed in this module. Students will explore how visual texts can contribute to an understanding of nationhood, class, race, sexuality and identity in the USA. Opening sessions will focus on ways of "reading" visual texts. [No previous experience of working with images is necessary]. Most of the semester will be devoted to analysing how photographic images both reflect and contribute to constructions of American culture.

Option B Study (60 credits)

Students will select 60 credits from the following modules:

Name	Code	Credits
19TH CENTURY AMERICAN WRITING	AMSA2L59	20
Seminar discussing 19th century American fiction and non-fictional prose. Alternative timetable slots to C2-C3 are E1-E2 or A4*AX.
20TH CENTURY MODERN POETRY: MODERNISM TO THE 1960S	AMSA2L24	20
This module will explore 20th Century American poetry from the turn of the century through to the 1960s. We begin by considering the contributions of Modernist-affiliated poets including Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein. We continue chronologically, stopping along the way to study and define the New Criticism, the Objectivist nexus, the Harlem Renaissance, Formalism, Free Verse, the Beats, the New York School and more.
AMERICA AND VIETNAM	AMSA2H01	20
This module examines the involvement of the United States in Vietnam, from the Second World War to the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Focusing on the main period of US entanglement, 1963-1973, it uses documents, historical studies, film, and literary texts to illuminate the American experience in Vietnam and its domestic repercussions.
AMERICAN PARIS BETWEEN THE WARS	AMSA2L65	20
This module introduces some of the styles, ideas and ideologies of trans-Atlantic modernism as elements in the creation of a myth. It centres on the American expatriate colony in Paris and, from this, works to contextualise and re-imagine some of the century's most notorious literary and artistic moments. Initial studies of the little magazines, manifestos, publishers, painters and photographers provide a sense of the driving political and aesthetic energies of the period, while the module's middle weeks uses this context to re-read a group of expatriate novels. The final three weeks of the course shifts the emphasis to considerations of memory, memoir and the construction of myth.
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY	AMSA2L63	20
This module surveys the prose of some of the twentieth century's most important American women writers, writers who (or whose 'other' works) tend to disappear from reading lists that include books by women only out of duty. Along the way we will seek to interrogate the terms with which we begin: American, women and prose. Assuming that biology does not define literature, we will instead seek to understand the social pressures on these women writers, and their responses to them, in an effort to maintain the specificity, diversity and range of these women's literary pursuits.
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION	AMSA2L78	20
This unit examines some of the ways in which very recent American fiction has responded to postmodernism, to generic border-crossing, and to pervasive cultural and social issues like multiculturalism and identity politics. How does literature imagine itself in an age of increasing globalization of media and literature? How does it respond to challenges to canon formation and to the very notion of the literary? Two Timetable slots: C5C6 or D5D6.
CONTEMPORARY US FOREIGN POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS	AMSA2H41	20
The aim of this module is to introduce students to issues in recent American foreign policy for the most part since the end of the Cold War, though with some reference where appropriate to earlier periods and events. We also examine institutional and political processes in policy-making. The module draws on the disciplines of history, political science and international relations to develop historical awareness along with an understanding of the workings of American political institutions in their international context.
GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE NEW REPUBLIC	AMSA2H06	20
This module examines the social construction of gender and sexuality within the United States during the period 1789-1861. It will trace the emerging gendered discourses of the post-revolutionary period, and address their significance to the formation of an American identity during this period. It will also focus upon the ways in which discourses of gender and sexuality interacted with those of race, class and ethnicity. A particular focus will be placed on the competing and contradictory identities that emerged in the northern and southern states, and the course will explore the possible reasons for, and consequences of these differences.
LIVING ON THE HYPHEN: CUBAN AMERICA	AMSA2L15	20
Since the mid nineteenth century Cuban nationals have been exiled in the United States and created a body of literature alerting the reader to the specifically transnational nature of Cuban identity. Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and the concomitant political, economic and cultural isolation of the island, the case of Cuba and Cuban exiles in the USA has been seen to be an exceptional and singular phenomenon with few commonalities with other ethnic groups in the United States. Moving beyond a nation-based model and utilising a transnational theoretical framework this course looks at contemporary Cuban and Cuban-American literature and film from both on and off the island in order to reconceptualise the relationship between the island and its exiles, analysing the evolution of the Cuban exile life and the ways in which questions of exile, return, family, belonging, identity, language and memory are explored and how they differ from previous generations for a variety of political, historical, sociological and ideological reasons (to be explored).
NATIVE AMERICANS	AMSA2H15	20
This seminar will study Native Americans within the broad context of American history, although the cultures of individual tribes will also be examined. Brief attention will be paid to pre-colonial times, but the main emphasis will be on the period after the white man's arrival.
NEW YORK CITY: HISTORY AND CULTURE IN THE 20TH CENTURY	AMSA2H10	20
This module will explore the history and culture of New York City in the 20th century. The readings, lectures, and discussions will concentrate on ethnic identity, the civil rights movement, public art, political and social conflict, urban development, film, architecture, and literature. The course will also examine why New Yorkers pay inordinate attention to their neighbourhoods and how this emphasis on place has racial and ethnic implications.
PROTESTING THE AMERICAN CENTURY: DISSENT AND US FOREIGN POLICY	AMSA2H13	20
The module considers dissent and protest vis-à-vis US foreign relations during what was famously termed the ‘American Century’. It looks at how dissenting voices – from government officials, military officers, intellectuals, spies, citizen groups, and whistleblowers – have challenged the status quo from 1898 to the present. Analysing the connections with other protest movements at home, it explores how opposition to unjust US policies abroad is considered a quintessential American characteristic. It looks at the writings and activities of a wide range of political figures, activists, and writers, including George Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Philip Agee, as well as the emergence of classified material into the public domain such as the Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks State Department cables. Finally, it considers the effort to oppose and, in some cases, silence critical voices.
RACE AND RACISM IN THE USA	AMSA2H32	20
This seminar will explore the origins and continued role in American culture of the idea of race. Where did the concept of race come from? And to what uses has it been put by various groups within America's pluralistic society? Restricted to students on programmes in American History or Literature, or who have previously done modules on race. Not available to first year students.
RADICAL COUSINS OR RIVAL SIBLINGS? U.S. AND AUSTRALIAN LITERATURES.	AMSA2L18	20
This module takes as its point of departure critic Joseph Jones’ representation of America and Australia as “radical cousins” and extends this formulation to ask whether they might equally be thought of as rival siblings. From its establishment as a penal colony in 1788—in large part as a result of the newly independent United States’ refusal to harbour Britain’s convicts any longer—Australia remained loyal to the Empire, even as it looked increasingly to the United States for guidance in matters of politics and popular culture. The module compares American and Australian literature from the past century or so in order to examine how both countries have engaged and explored shared questions about settler and post/ colonial identity; the staging of cultural independence from Great Britain; the size and scope of the natural environment; and gender performance, among others.
THE BEATS AND THE LIMITS OF WRITING	AMSA2L84	20
This module covers the writers known as ‘The Beats’ in terms of their antecedents, the literary and cultural traditions in which they worked, and the social and critical debates that raged during their heyday. Students will be asked to read widely, to compare and contrast different writers’ styles, and to make informed judgements about the writers’ relationships to the times in which they wrote. The module aims to foster an understanding of the Beat literary phenomenon in literary, political and social contexts. It will also examine the debts Beat writers owed to ‘American Renaissance’ writers including Emerson and Whitman, to wider ideas of the ‘avant-garde’ in the Twentieth Century generally, and to European Romantic traditions. It will investigate how a Beat poetics developed as a response to Cold War ‘consensus culture’, and sought to establish a countercultural (though distinctly American) ‘tradition’.
THE COLD WAR AND AMERICAN CULTURE	AMSA2H44	20
This module explores the way in which American society and culture was shaped during the years of the Cold War, the tense standoff between the two “superpowers” between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The work includes consideration of the key events, issues, and concepts in the history of the Cold War, from the division of Europe and the Marshall Plan, the emergence of the Truman Doctrine, the impact of the Chinese Revolution, through the Cuban missile crisis, the period of detente in the 1970s and the chilling of US-Soviet relations during the “second Cold War” of the early 1980s. Particular attention is given to the impact of those events in the USA, upon the ways in which Cold War anxieties were represented – and, also, the ways in which anxieties about American society became meshed in the Cold War. Discussion will range across issues from the bomb and the space race to the family, gender, and race. Throughout, particular use will be made of visual sources and film.
THE HOLOCAUST IN AMERICAN LITERATURE	AMSA2L82	20
This module aims to explore representations of the Holocaust in American literature. Students will explore how the Holocaust is represented by American Jewish and non-Jewish authors. Students will consider whether, and how, the Holocaust is ‘Americanised’ by American writers; they will consider some of the ethical and philosophical debates concerning representation of the Holocaust in art; they will examine how American Jewish writers engage with the Holocaust to negotiate questions of Jewish identity; and they will consider the problematic uses and definitions of the term ‘holocaust’ in American culture.

Free Choice Study (40 credits)

Students will select modules worth 40 credits from the course catalogue with the approval of their School

Compulsory Study (120 credits)

Students must study the following modules for 120 credits:

Name	Code	Credits
AMERICAN STUDIES SEMESTER ABROAD: AMERICA	AMSA2Y03	60
A semester spent at an American university taking an approved course of study. Restricted to students on 4 year programmes.
AMERICAN STUDIES SEMESTER ABROAD: AUSTRALIA	AMSA2Y02	60
A semester spent at an Australian university taking an approved course of study. Restricted to students on 4 year programmes.
AMERICAN STUDIES YEAR ABROAD	AMSA2Y1Y	120
A year spent at an American university taking an approved course of study. Restricted to students on 4 year programme. For students on programmes:U1T700401, U1TQ73401, U1TW76401, U1T7W8401, U1V238401, U1V2L2401, U1TW76401.

Compulsory Study (30 credits)

Students must study the following modules for 30 credits:

Name	Code	Credits
AMERICAN STUDIES YEAR ABROAD DISSERTATION	AMSA3Y05	30
Final year dissertation involving research into a specific issue or topic in American culture, society, history or literature. Restricted to students on the 4 year programmes. Topics will already have been approved on the basis of dissertation proposals submitted during the year abroad.

Option A Study (90 credits)

Students will select 90 credits from the following modules:

Name	Code	Credits
AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY	AMSA3L07	30
This module examines the fascination of American literature with questions of selfhood, identity and autobiography. Opening sessions of the module will look at ways in which the very idea of America and its literature emerges from early-national attempts to 'write the self' and discuss changing theories of selfhood, identity and individuality as they are played out in America's historical development from colony, to nation, to postmodern superpower. Subsequent sessions will focus on specific texts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries which engage questions of selfhood in order to define, maintain and develop an idea of what being an American might mean.
AMERICAN DRAMA 1970-PRESENT	AMSA3L19	30
This module will be concerned with exploring the work of American dramatists in the context of the social, political and cultural life of the country. In particular, it will give attention to the work of new women and African-American writers as well as to that of established dramatists.
AMERICAN GOTHIC	AMSA3L62	30
American fiction began in the period of the European Gothic novel, which thus marked the American tradition from the first. In this seminar module we will establish the meaning of gothic conventions and consider their persisting effects in American fiction.
ANIMALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY	AMSA3H3Y	60
This two-semester, 60 credit module familiarizes students with the wide range of approaches that have been taken toward the study of animals in American history. We will begin with early modern understandings of the place of animals in the natural order, and proceed through the introduction of domestic livestock into North America, controversies between colonists and Native Americans over hunting, cattle and fencing, wolf-eradication campaigns, wilderness preservation, the role of horses in the development of modern cities, the invention of the zoo, pet-keeping, factory hog-raising, and ideological battles over animal rights. By evaluating the developing historiography, students will learn about changing issues and concepts under debate. Primary sources will be used throughout both semesters. A range of different types of texts will be analysed and students will learn techniques appropriate for interrogating them. On their own and in groups, students in this module will work with an increasing level of independence. In the second semester, they will work in groups to introduce different weekly topics and everyone will be given the opportunity to write a research project on a topic of his/her own choosing.
FIRST PEOPLES, COLONIZERS AND THE USA	AMSA3H7Y	60
A two-semester special subject, this module situates the study of Indian history within the broad sweep of America's past, from colonial times to the present day. White settlement and expansion are the back-drop to the story, but native experiences and interpretations, which do not fit comfortably into the traditional narrative of nation-building, are given equal importance. In addition to studying such topics as federal Indian policy, missionary activities and reservation casinos, students will choose a specific tribe for individual study.
GENDER IN AMERICAN CULTURE	AMSA3S22	30
The aim of this module is to think about democracy in the United States through a gendered lens. The Declaration of Independence declared that "all men were created free and equal", but throughout the history of the United States certain social groups have been denied their rights to citizenship and democracy. Therefore this module will be focusing upon the ways in which gender has been central to the construction of citizenship and democracy in the US. These concepts are critical elements in the formation of a modern American identity, and this module will provide a broader understanding of this distinctive feature of American history and society.
MARK TWAIN AND THE GILDED AGE	AMSA3L20	30
According to William Faulkner, Mark Twain was “the first truly American writer […] the father of American literature.” This module will test such paternity claims and examine their wider ramifications. We will explore Twain’s writing, his relationship to the Gilded Age, his contemporaries, and his influence on later American writers. As both author and man, Twain contained multitudes. Few writers have straddled so many genres and styles, and few Americans have embodied so many of the nation’s animating forces and tensions. He was, as his friend William Dean Howells felt, “incomparable”, and this module is an opportunity for significant reading and research into his life, work and beyond.
MULTI-ETHNIC AMERICAN WRITING	AMSA3L12	30
America has long been interpreted as the location of social possibility founded upon a desire to assimilate and negate ethnic 'others'. This module traces the literary responses of four distinct 'American' cultures: Native American; African American; Asian American; and Mexican American. Each group of texts engage with the specific historical, cultural and political relationships between the US and each author's country of origin or national/cultural history, across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics will include race and racism, colonisation, imperialism, slavery, segregation, immigration, and illegality/invisibility, with an emphasis upon contemporary experiences.
NATIVE AMERICAN WRITING AND FILM	AMSA3S02	30
This module considers Native American writing and film as sites of cultural and political resistance, analysing the ways in which a diverse range of Native authors, screenwriters and directors within the United States respond to contemporary tribal socio-economic and political conditions. Taking popular ideas of 'the Indian', this module considers the ways in which stereotypes and audience expectations are subverted and challenged. Topics include race and racism, indigeneity, identity, culture, gender, genre, land and notions of 'home', community, dialogue, postcolonial theory in its application to those who remain colonised, and political issues such as human rights and environmental racism.
NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: CULTURE AND CRISIS	AMSA3S1Y	60
A two semester special subject American Studies module that reads contemporary American culture through the lens of crisis. On the eve of the twenty-first century it appeared that the United States of America was indeed entering into a new American Century with its role as global leader as strongly defined as it was a century earlier. However, the last decade has been witness to a nation in turmoil and crisis, from the conflict between a universalising (Americanising) globalisation and an introspective nationalism; the war on terror and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq; environmental crisis and disaster; the conflict surrounding immigration and national identity, to the present financial crisis. The renewed and vigorous return to rhetoric of national ‘unity’ that characterised the campaign and election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008 highlighted the historical divisions and crises of American society and underscored that contemporary America is in crisis geopolitically, economically, democratically, environmentally, and culturally. Indeed, Obama’s presidency has witnessed further polarisation of American politics and culture with the birth of the Tea Party Movement and the very recent Occupy Wall Street (now global) movement. Through a variety of cultural texts, from literature, film and documentary, political speeches and letters, to historical texts and pop culture, this course examines the ways in which these crises have been culturally and politically constructed and given particular sets of meaning and the ways in which these ‘meanings’ have been utilised and mobilised to further create ‘Fortress America’ and its particular brand of nationalism at the expense of all ‘others’, whether outside or inside the United States. The way culture has engaged with, coproduced, and resisted these sets of meanings will be the main focus of this module.
PLACE, RACE AND SPACE: AMERICAN MIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP	AMSA3S11	30
This module will examine the contradictions of place-making, spatial mobility, and citizenship in the Americas by looking at the movement and settlement of immigrants and migrants since the 1870s. Although the concepts of place-making and spatial mobility appear to be contradictory, immigrants and migrants in their quest to find a home, move across regions, borders, and continents. Their ability to settle in certain places, depends on the economic and cultural conditions that prevail in the host locality and on the political-economic structure of the host society. Citizenship becomes an important variable in this process, because non-citizens are more vulnerable to social, political, and economic changes.
TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE	AMSA3L31	30
This module examines American prose of the 1920s in the context of the Jazz Age. American literature of the 20s is often conflated with modernism, or the expatriate experience, or the Harlem Renaissance; this module will consider 1920s writing in the context of the market and the rise of professional authorship, anxieties about imitation and the middlebrow and conformism, and the pressures of commercial success on fiction. It will draw on reception studies and the influence of publication formats (mass-market magazines, serial publication, the burgeoning market for film adaptations). Texts will be drawn from a mix of “high” and “low.” After considering the pressures of commercialism on the publication of The Waste Land, texts could include the short stories of Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, Babbitt, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Winesburg, Ohio, Glimpses of the Moon, and Manhattan Transfer. Students will also be expected to research journalism of the day, such as The New Yorker and the New York Times, which have accessible online archives.
THE AMERICAN BODY	AMSA3S30	30
This module reads the changing values, presentations and representations of the body that move through and construct American culture. This module will involve pairing theoretical perspectives with current and historical ideas of the body to allow us to interrogate intellectual and popular meanings assigned to and played out through the body, reading particular moments in American writing, art, photography and popular forms for the things they might tell us about corporality and self presentation, but also about the wider structures of the social and cultural environment. We will engage with canonical debates about race, gender, sexuality and ideas of ‘representation’, but also with categories that cut across and through these modes of reading – with the normal and the ideal, ideas of illness and wellness, ability and disability, of the organic and the machine, of the body under servitude, or under punishment, and with the whole idea of embodiment in itself. This module – like all other modules at this level - requires a substantial, regular, reading commitment.
THE GREAT SOCIETY: AMERICA FROM JFK & LBJ TO NIXON, 1960-74	AMSA3H01	30
This module follows the American story from 1960-1974, from the promise and tragedy of JFK’s Camelot, through the achievements and frustrations of LBJ’s Great Society, to the period of adjustment – and disillusionment – during the Presidency of Richard Nixon and the era of Watergate. The work covers the key political events of a period that saw a defining struggle between liberalism and conservatism – one which continues to resonate to this day. In part it focuses upon the politicians who helped define the era – such as Bobby Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, and George Wallace as well as the Presidents. But consideration is not confined to Washington politics: we will look at popular protest, from the Civil Rights movement and Black Power to the New Left, the peace movement, women’s liberation, and Stonewall. We consider the war on poverty, the politics of race, the emergence of a new environmental awareness, the questioning of gender, and the sexual revolution. In addition, the unit includes discussion of the continuing significance of the Cold War, not least in respect of Vietnam and the Space Race. Students are also invited to consider the ways in which the dramatic changes and conflicts of the era shaped American culture, especially movies, music, art, and literature
THE LITERARY 1960s	AMSA3L23	30
When thinking of the sixties, literature, in general, is not what immediately springs to mind - pushed, as it is, to the background of music and the counterculture. Yet the decade brought about many profound changes in the paradigms of literature. Amongst such changes was the proliferation of metafiction as a narrative response to both the 'exhaustion' of literature in the light of the period's dramatic events, and to the new literary and philosophical developments in critical theory (poststructuralism). There was also the emergence of two 'new' genres: new journalism, and the non-fiction novel. This module is an examination of literary responses to the many changes and challenges brought about in this decade. It will discuss whether literature simply recoiled into solipsistic abstraction or whether it was a motivating force in the general struggle to conceptualize a ‘new’ or countercultural American consciousness.
THE POETICS OF PLACE: POST 1945 AMERICAN POETRY AND ENVIRONMENT	AMSA3L24	30
The American poet Charles Olson famously declared: ‘I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America, from Folsom cave to now. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large, and without mercy.’ This module explores how a range of linguistically innovative American poets, from 1945 to the present, have engaged this question of space and environment in their writings. There will be a particular focus on how scientific literature, natural history writing, field guides, and eco-criticism have contributed to poets’ theories of poetry and poetics as well as an emphasis on the role environmental notions of place and space play in forming and critiquing ideas of American identity.
THE RISING TIDE OF THE TRANSPACIFIC	AMSA3L35
This module considers the ways in which American literature has engaged with the opening up of Pacific space from the early nineteenth century to the present. From Melville’s adventures on whaling vessels throughout the Pacific, to Pearl Harbour and anxieties about Japanese presence in and beyond the borders of the United States, to writing by contemporary Asian-American authors whose work evinces influences from China, Korea and India, the texts on this course chart the ways in which the Pacific Ocean and its peoples have contributed to, created, and contested American national narratives. The module will develop students’ insights into issues of U.S. national history and cultural geography, and deepen their engagement with current theories of nationalism and transnationalism either in preparation for, or as a frame for reflection on, their studies abroad.
US INTERVENTIONISM, THE CIA AND COVERT ACTION	AMSA3H26	30
The covert activities of the CIA represent arguably the most notorious face of US foreign relations. Yet to what extent is clandestine American interventionism consistent with official overt policies? And how do we come to understand covert action campaigns? This module will introduce the main conceptual and historic debates relevant to the analysis of covert action as a tool of US foreign relations. In so doing it will consider the institutions and processes behind covert action, especially the role of the CIA. It also considers the mediums that narrate and explain American covert action. This will provide a fuller and richer understanding of the United States’ place in the international system since World War II, its relationship to other states and non-state actors, and discussions about American identity and the nation’s role in the world.

Disclaimer

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules and regular (five-yearly) review of course programmes. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, there will normally be prior consultation of students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff or sabbatical leave. Where this is the case, the University will endeavour to inform students.

Year Abroad

All students on our four year degree courses spend their third year studying abroad, choosing from a range of over 40 institutions. Our Year Abroad programme has been running for over 30 years, enabling students to study in the USA or Canada for a full year, or choose to split the year between North America and Australasia, and so experience American Studies from a Pacific Rim point of view as well as the Atlantic perspective gained while at the University of East Anglia.

For more information on Study Abroad, please visit our Study Abroad site

Entry Requirements

Qualification:: BA (Hons)
A Level:: AAB-ABB (preferably including English Literature or History)
International Baccalaureate:: 33 points including 5 in Higher Level English or History
Scottish Highers:: At least one Advanced Higher preferred in addition to Highers
Scottish Advanced Highers:: AAB-ABB (preferably including English Literature or History)
Irish Leaving Certificate:: AAAABB-AABBBB
Access Course:: Please contact the university for further information
HND:: Please contact the university for further information
European Baccalaureate:: 80-75% (preferably including English Literature or History)

Students for whom English is a Foreign language

We welcome applications from students from all academic backgrounds. We require evidence of proficiency in English (including writing, speaking, listening and reading). Recognised English Language qualifications include:

IELTS: 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in Reading and Writing with no less than 5.5 in any component)
TOEFL: Internet-based score of 88 overall (minimum 20 in Reading and Speaking components, 19 in Writing component and 17 in Listening components.
PTE: 62 overall (minimum 55 in Reading and Writing components with no less than 51 in any component).

If you do not meet the University's entry requirements, our INTO Language Learning Centre offers a range of university preparation courses to help you develop the high level of academic and English skills necessary for successful undergraduate study.

Interviews

The majority of candidates will not be called for an interview. However, for some students an interview will be requested. These are normally quite informal and generally cover topics such as your current studies, reasons for choosing the course and your personal interests and extra-curricular activities.

Students will have the opportunity to meet with an academic on a Visit Day in order to gain a deeper insight into the course(s) you have applied for.

Gap Year

We welcome applications from students who have already taken or intend to take a gap year.

Deferred Entry
We also welcome applications for deferred entry, believing that a year between school and university can be of substantial benefit. You are advised to indicate your reason for wishing to defer entry and may wish to contact the appropriate Admissions Office directly to discuss this further.

Special Entry Requirements

Preferred A-level subjects are English Literature or History.

Intakes

The School's annual intake is in September of each year.

Alternative Qualifications

If you have alternative qualifications that have not been mentioned above then please contact university directly for further information.

GCSE Offer

Students are required to have Mathematics and English at Grade C or above at GCSE Level.

Assessment

For the majority of candidates the most important factors in assessing the application will be past and future achievement in examinations, academic interest in the subject being applied for, personal interest and extra-curricular activities and the confidential reference. We consider applicants as individuals and accept students from a very wide range of educational backgrounds and spend time considering your application in order to reach an informed decision relating to your application. Typical offers are indicated above. Please note, there may be additional subject entry requirements specific to individual degree courses.

Fees and Funding

In each year, the School of American Studies offers up to 25% of its students on a Year Abroad, a £1000 Arthur Miller Scholarship. Those students scoring top marks in their A level exams will be considered for one of these awards.

University Fees and Financial Support: UK/EU Students

Further information on fees and funding for 2012 can be found here

University Fees and Financial Support: International Students

The University will be charging International students £11,700.00 for all full time School of American Studies undergraduate programmes which start in 2012.

Please click to access further information about fees and funding for International students.

How to Apply

Applications need to be made via the Universities Colleges and Admissions Services (UCAS), using the UCAS Apply option.

UCAS Apply is a secure online application system that allows you to apply for full-time Undergraduate courses at universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. It is made up of different sections that you need to complete. Your application does not have to be completed all at once. The system allows you to leave a section partially completed so you can return to it later and add to or edit any information you have entered. Once your application is complete, it must be sent to UCAS so that they can process it and send it to your chosen universities and colleges.

The UCAS code name and number for the University of East Anglia is EANGL E14.

Further Information

If you would like to discuss your individual circumstances with the Admissions Office prior to applying please do contact us:

Undergraduate Admissions Office

Tel: +44 (0)1603 591515
Email: admissions@uea.ac.uk

request a copy of our latest prospectus and subject brochures
get access to exclusive information personalised to your interests
keep up to date with news and events at UEA.

International candidates are also actively encouraged to access the University's International webpages.