Welcome to the American Studies Program at Miami University!

For further information about curriculum requirements for the undergraduate Major in American Studies
and the undergraduate Minor in American Studies, click on the menu items (in black) to the left. Look there as well

for further information about Honors in American Studies, Internships in American Studies, and the Mission Statement

for the Miami University American Studies Program.

For more information about specific courses in American Studies, click here.

The History of American Studies at Miami

Miami was among the first wave of higher learning institutions to develop an undergraduate American studies curriculum. In 1944, an Interdepartmental Field of Concentration in American Civilization was established by vote of the Arts and Science Faculty. In 1963, the Dean of Arts and Science appointed an ad-hoc committee to re-examine the major. The committee recommended the creation of a degree-granting interdisciplinary program in American Studies that included three courses in American Studies (a one-semester sophomore seminar, AMS 202 Introduction to American Studies, and a two-semester senior seminar, AMS 401-02 Senior Capstone in American Studies). These courses were listed under the auspices of the English Department and supplemented by a distribution of courses from related traditional disciplines.

Thus, in 1964, twenty years after its original founding, a formal program in American Studies was established at Miami with a curriculum based on the interdisciplinary intellectual history model developed at the 1957 American Studies Conference in Washington D.C. and presented in Robert Walker's 1958 survey, American Studies in the United States: A Survey of College Programs . By 1970 the curriculum offered seminars for the full sophomore (AMS 201-202) and senior (AMS 401-402) years. Over the past thirty-eight years the strength of the program has extended from the dynamism and intellectual energy of a series of noted scholars who have served as directors of the program: Robert Meredith (English) (1964-1970), who went on to found the program in American Studies at University of California, Davis; Curtis Ellison (English) (1970-1974) who has since served as Dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies (1981-1996), Interim Dean of the School of Education (1998-2001), Interim Dean of the School of Fine Arts (2003-2004) and is currently a joint appoint in American Studies, the Department of History, and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and serving as the Interim Director of the William Holmes McGuffey Museum; Judith Fryer (English) (1974-1984), who moved on to the Program in American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst ; Elliot Gorn (History) (1985-1992) who went on to the Department of American Studies at Purdue University and was recently appointed to the Department of History at Brown University; and Peter Williams (REL) (1992-2002), who has served as the chair of the Department of Comparative Religion and is a University Distinguished Professor.

The program is currently staffed by a new director, Marguerite S. Shaffer (History) and five other joint appointment core faculty: Mary Kupiec Cayton (History); Sheila Crouhcher (Political Science); Curtis Ellison (History and Interdisciplinary Studies); Charles Stevens (International Studies); and Peter Williams (Religion). We have 12 affiliate faculty, and three visiting assistant professors: John Kinder (AMS and History), Helen Sheumaker (AMS and the McGuffey Museum), Susanne Wiedemann (AMS), and Matthew Yockey (AMS and COM). The program is guided by the core faculty and the American Studies Advisory Committee which meet regularly to discuss program initiatives and goals.