Publications: Directory of Graduate Programs

University of Iowa
American Studies Department

Degrees Awarded: MA, PhD

Academic System: Semester

Enrollment: (MA) 1 (PhD) 33

Deadlines: January 10

Financial Aid: 4-year and 2-year fellowships, teaching assistantships, research assistantships, Iowa Fellowships, Graduate Opportunity Fellowships, Ballard Dissertation Fellowships

Affiliations and Internships: Numerous local/regional archives, museums, and public institutions

Program Specializations: Popular culture, film and television, feminist and queer theories, the performing arts, ethnography and fieldwork, literature and history, documentary and phography, international views of America, and technology and culture.

The Iowa American Studies Department encourages its students to refine their abilities in cultural analysis, cultural criticism, and cultural history, through mastery of interdisciplinary and multdisciplinary bodies of materials and modes of understanding. The core American Studies faculty members are interdisciplinary scholars whose first allegiance is to the program and its holisitc assumptions. Interdisciplinary courses and seminars in the American Studies Department are complemented by disciplinary courses focused on particular features of American culture from over twenty departments and programs of the university. Undergraduate and graduate studetns at Iowa design with an adivosr their own plan of study, one that meets the particular intellectual needs they wish to satisfy with a blend of interdisciplinary and disciplinary courses.

MA Requirements: The MA consists of 12 courses beyond the BA. Students may elect either a thesis or non-thesis option. All candidates must take a comprehensive examination. The examination for thesis students is an oral defense of the thesis. The examination for non-thesis students is written over the course of the last semester of enrollment and consists of two 20-page essays.

PhD Requirements: The PhD consists of at least four interdisciplinary courses in American Studies, including theories of cultural study; two areas of major concentration; comprehensive exams; and a dissertation.

American Studies Faculty

ADAMS, Bluford (PhD, Virginia, 1993) Associate Professor; Nineteenth century US culture, fiction and ethnicity

BIRRELL, Susan (PhD, UMass, 1978) Professor; Critical cultural analyses of sport and leisure, Feminist theory and analysis, Mt. Everest as cultural site, Cultural history of the American vacation

CMIEL, Ken (PhD, Chicago, 1986) Professor; American Cultural & Intellectual History, Twentieth-Century Global Politics

DESMOND, Jane (PhD, Yale, 1993) Associate professor; cultural theory; feminist theory; contemporary arts; popular culture; media and live performance; physicality and social identity.

HORWITZ, Richard (PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1975) Professor; fieldwork, theory and method, community studies

LATHAM, Robert (PhD, Stanford Univ., 1995)

MARRA, Kimberly (PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1990)

PORTER, Horace; Professor; African American studies

RABINOVITZ, Lauren (PhD, Univ. of Texas, 1982) Associate Professor; popular culture, cinema and television, cultures of American women, technology and culture

RAEBURN, John (PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1969) Professor; photography and film, popular culture, literature and culture

RIGAL, Laura (PhD, Stanford Univ., 1989) Associate Professor; technology, the environment, literature and culture of the Revolution and early Republic

YABLON, Nick (PhD, Chicago, 2002) Assistant professor; Nineteenth and twentieth century American cultural, social, politcal, and intellectual history. Urbanism, architecture, and the built environment; and the experiential impact of moden urbanization (on memory, the senses, etc).

Contact

American Studies Department
202 Jefferson Building (JB)
Iowa City, IA 52242
Phone: 319/335-0320
Fax: 319/335-0314 (attn: American Studies)
E-mail:
www.uiowa.edu/~amstud/

Chair: Lauren Rabinovitz

Admissions

University of Iowa
Graduate Admissions
Office of Admissions
107 Calvin Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242
1-800-553-IOWA or
319-335-3847
e-mail:
http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/graduate/