About Us

American Studies at Essex is over 40 years old, and perhaps the broadest based programme of its type in Britain. We are quite proud of our interdisciplinary heritage and work to preserve the principles of working across disciplines to gain a more rounded image of US culture, identity, history, and arts. According to The Guardian newspaper, we were ranked in the top 5 American Studies programmes nationally.

The Essex curriculum combines study of the U.S. through the humanities and the social sciences. 

In the humanities, there are modules that contribute to the degree courses in many areas of American literature and film (through the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies), as well as American history (through the Department of History which has been placed 2nd in the UK in the RAE Results 2008) and 19th and 20th century American art (through the Department of Art History and Theory which was ranked 9th in the UK in the RAE Results ). 

In the social sciences, departments of Government and Sociology (ranked in first position nationally in the RAE Results) contribute modules in various aspects of US politics and society, including the branches of government, US foreign policy, crime, and ethnic group politics.  Please see each department's website for further details on module offerings.

The interdisciplinary core modules bring all of the American Studies students together in small seminar groups during the first, second, and third / fourth years.  This means that students who graduate from Essex are often a close knit group; it also means that a lot of travelling--and visiting of Essex friends studying in the US--can take place during the time spent abroad. 

The range of subjects offered in the programme is mirrored by a wide range of research projects currently being pursued by staff teaching on the programme, who are working on everything from American politics and the electorate; to cinematic images of the American Pacific; to politics and land rights of the native Innu of Labrador in Canada; to Civil Rights and African American History; and American crime fiction.  

American Studies is administered by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities (CISH).