American Studies

Graduate Study

Ph.D. program in American Studies.

Our department began as a graduate program in 1945 and consistently ranks at the top. Our graduate training focuses especially on social justice, community engagement, structural racism and inequality, recovery of historical silences, American empire, public art, and public history, to name a few thematic foci.  Our pedagogy embraces work that moves beyond the textual to the visual, material, and performative. And our faculty are engaged teachers and dynamic mentors.

 

The Ph.D. program in American Studies at Brown University is highly selective. We typically receive over 125 applications each year, from which we accept four to six entering students.
The American Studies M.A. program is cohort-centered and community-based.
The primary goal of the Ph.D. program in American Studies is to train students to become knowledgeable, engaged, and productive scholars and public humanists.